Too AI-Reliant, Anti-AI Gen Z and Digital Val Kilmer: Three Signs AI Has Entered Its Messy Normal Phase
In this episode of Creative Machinas // Hot Takes, Justin Matthews and Nigel Horrocks return for Season 2 with three AI stories that show how quickly the technology has moved from novelty to cultural pressure point.
First, they explore the growing concern that workers are becoming too dependent on tools like ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini. The issue is not simply that AI might make people less intelligent, but that it may be making them less confident in their own reasoning. The discussion centres on the difference between using AI thoughtfully as part of hybrid intelligence and simply deferring to it.
Second, they unpack the claim that Gen Z is turning away from AI. The conversation pushes past the surface-level idea that younger people are anti-AI and looks instead at the deeper labour-market problem: AI is eating into entry-level jobs, making it harder for young people to gain the basic workplace experience needed to become skilled mid-career and senior workers later.
Third, they examine the rise of digital actors through the case of a recreated Val Kilmer. This opens up questions about consent, legacy, performance, audience acceptance and digital afterlives. Hollywood may debate the ethics, but the technology is already here, and the real test may be whether audiences accept synthetic performances as part of mainstream entertainment.
Hot Takes
AI has entered its messy normal phase. The hype cycle is not over, but it has changed shape. We are now seeing the second-order consequences: workers doubting their own thinking, young people wondering whether the career ladder still exists, and Hollywood testing whether dead actors can keep performing.
The common thread is not just automation. It is displacement of confidence, opportunity and presence. AI does not only replace tasks. It changes how people understand their own value inside systems.
Hot Take 1: AI Reliance Is Becoming a Confidence Problem
The first hot take is that the real danger of everyday AI use may not be stupidity, but self-doubt.
The concern is not that people use AI to help write, plan, summarise or think. Used well, AI can become part of a powerful hybrid intelligence process. The problem begins when people stop challenging the output and start treating it as the default answer.
That shift matters. Once people lose confidence in their own judgement, they are less likely to push back, refine, question or improve what the AI gives them. The human in the loop becomes a human watching the loop.
Hot Take 2: Gen Z Is Not Simply Anti-AI. They Are Facing a Broken Entry System
The second hot take is that Gen Z’s anxiety about AI is not just cultural resistance. It is structural.
Younger workers are being told AI is essential, but they are also entering a job market where many entry-level roles are under pressure. Those roles are not just low-status jobs. They are training grounds. They teach workplace judgement, accountability, communication, basic professional rhythm and the messy reality of learning by doing.
If AI erodes the bottom rung of the career ladder, the damage will not stay with Gen Z. It will eventually affect the whole workforce pipeline. No entry level means fewer properly developed mid-level and senior workers later.
Hot Take 3: Digital Actors Are No Longer a Speculative Problem
The third hot take is that digital actors are not coming. They are already here.
The case of digital Val Kilmer points to a bigger shift in Hollywood and entertainment. AI and related digital tools now make it increasingly possible to recreate, extend or simulate actors, voices and performances. That raises obvious questions about consent, estate approval, creative intent and exploitation.
But the uncomfortable reality is that audience acceptance may decide the future more than industry discomfort. If viewers reject the performance, the experiment fails. If they accept it, Hollywood will keep going.
Why It Matters
AI is becoming embedded in the systems that shape work, careers, creativity and culture.
The challenge is no longer whether AI will be used. It already is. The real question is what kind of human agency remains around it.
In work, that means keeping human judgement active rather than handing over thinking by default. In education and employment, it means protecting the pathways where people learn the skills AI cannot simply supply. In entertainment, it means deciding what we value in performance, presence and creative legacy when the person on screen may no longer be alive, available or physically present.
AI is not just changing outputs. It is changing confidence, opportunity and meaning. That is why these hot takes matter.
» Listen to the Full Podcast Episode or watch the YouTube Version at the Top
