Screenwriting is lonely. Not metaphorically. Literally just you, a document, and a feeling that something isn't working, but you can't name what.

Itai Hasid has been sitting in that room for over twenty years. Writer, filmmaker, tour guide, creative technologist. Someone who has lived and worked across Tel Aviv, Barcelona and London, and carries all three with him into every story he tells. He's now building an AI screenwriting advisor, and the way he talks about it tells you everything about why most AI writing tools miss the point entirely.

The tools that already exist, Itai says, mostly do the same thing. Here are your problems. Here is how to fix them. And that flattening effect, everyone reaching for the same trained responses, the same structural fixes, is exactly what kills originality. Because a pacing problem is rarely just a pacing problem. It's usually a symptom. Weak motivation, unclear stakes, a character whose emotional world the writer hasn't fully understood yet. Give someone the answer and you solve the wrong thing. Give them the right question and you keep the story alive.

That phrase stayed with me. Keeping the story alive. Because it applies well beyond screenwriting. It's the difference between a tool that replaces your thinking and one that sharpens it. Itai isn't anti-AI. He's anti-shortcut. He wants writers to grow. The AI becomes a thinking partner, not a ghostwriter.

We talked about imperfection, too. The actor who walks on with the wrong energy and somehow makes the scene better. The location that changed because of budget and became more interesting than the original idea. The improvised Thor and Loki scene in Ragnarok. These are not failures of craft. They're what happens when human encounters produce something no one planned. AI doesn't live inside the risk of the moment. That's not a criticism. It's just a fact worth holding.

And then there's his father's philosophy, the idea that most human behaviour is not driven by ambition or pleasure but by the need to escape pain. We watch films for distraction. We use AI because not knowing is uncomfortable. We ask for answers because sitting with uncertainty feels unbearable. But sometimes the discomfort is the point. Sometimes the not-knowing is where the best work comes from. If AI only ever removes that friction, it weakens us rather than develops us.

What I took from Itai is a useful test for any AI tool. Does it give you a fish, or does it make you a better fisherman? The answer changes everything about what the tool is actually for.

Find Itai at itaihasid.com or search for him on LinkedIn. Two of him exist there, apparently. You'll find the right one.

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This was made with humans.

Your host - Shaun Phillips

Editor: Glen Boswell
https://astralforgefilm.com
https://www.instagram.com/thebozzyman

Original music composed and produced by Brokli - https://youtube.com/@iambrokli

Original logo illustration and in video podcast graphics by Jesse Rist - https://instagram.com/jesse_rist

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There's a moment in this conversation where Helen describes trees growing weak and weedy inside the Eden Project's biodomes. They'd forgotten about the wind. No resistance, no strength.

That image has stayed with me.

We're in a strange period with technology. The pressure to be on every platform, to use every tool, to 10x your output with AI, is relentless. And what Helen sees in her work with small business owners is the quiet cost of that pressure. People apologising for not doing enough. People convinced they're failing. A painter and decorator who's never needed Instagram, feeling guilty for not having one.

Helen's reframe is simple and it's right. Technology should fit you. Not the other way round.

The washing machine analogy landed for me. Nobody's scared the washing machine will take over the kitchen. Nobody expects it to cook dinner just because it lives near the cooker. We accept it as a tool, use it for what it's good at, and get on with our lives. AI deserves exactly the same framing. The problem is the marketing around it doesn't want you to think that way. Scarcity and urgency sell. Calm utility doesn't.

What I appreciate about Helen is that she's genuinely curious about AI. She plays with it. She's tried most of the tools. She has opinions about which AI behaves like a labrador and which one behaves like a border collie. And yet she holds it lightly. She knows it's guessing. She knows it can't do numbers reliably. She knows that when you drop a red sock in the white wash, you get pink, and that's on you for not sorting the laundry first.

The part of this conversation I keep returning to is the identity question. What happens to us when the only voice we listen to is one that's been built to tell us what we want to hear? AI optimises for engagement. It wants you to come back. That's not the same as wanting what's best for you. The friend who challenges you, the colleague who drives you up the wall but teaches you something, the training course you attend not for the content but for the people in the room. These are the things that actually grow us. The wind that makes the roots go deeper.

Helen works as a purpose and strategy coach alongside her digital advisory work, and I think that combination makes complete sense. Because the question of which technology serves you is inseparable from the question of who you are and what you're actually trying to do. Once you know that, the noise quietens down. The decisions get easier. You can close the Facebook account you haven't touched in four years and feel relief instead of guilt.

If any of this has sparked something for you, reach out to Helen on LinkedIn or drop her a line at [email protected].

And if this episode has been useful, share it with someone who needs permission to stop pretending they're failing at tech.

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This was made with humans.

Your host - Shaun Phillips

Editor: Glen Boswell
https://astralforgefilm.com
https://www.instagram.com/thebozzyman

Original music composed and produced by Brokli - https://youtube.com/@iambrokli

Original logo illustration and in video podcast graphics by Jesse Rist - https://instagram.com/jesse_rist

Follow us for episode clips https://www.instagram.com/betterwithhumans

All episodes and news at https://www.betterwithhumans.com

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Connect with Shaun on Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/shaunph/

There's a study from MIT that found 83% of people who used ChatGPT to write an essay couldn't quote a single sentence from what they'd written. That stopped me cold.

Richard Lalchan is back, and this time we went deep on critical thinking. Not as an abstract virtue, but as something that can be measured, exercised, and apparently lost. Richard is a digital wellbeing and clarity coach, and someone who thinks harder about our relationship with technology than almost anyone I know.

We started where a lot of these conversations start: with Daniel Kahneman. System one, system two. The fast brain and the slow brain. The point isn't that one is better than the other. You need system one when someone shouts fire. But social media, phone design, and now AI are all pulling us toward the fast brain, toward the dopamine hit, away from the kind of thinking that actually serves us.

Then Richard walked me through that MIT study. Fifty-four participants, split into three groups: one using ChatGPT, one using Google Search, one using just their brain. Over four months, the ChatGPT group showed significantly reduced cognitive engagement compared to the others. And when they switched them around in the final session, the effect persisted. The conclusion the researchers used was striking: LLM users consistently underperformed at neural, linguistic, and behavioural levels. The phrase that stayed with me came from the study's concept of cognitive debt. Choosing the speed of AI today is borrowing intelligence from the future. At some point, the debt comes due.

Richard came with guardrails, not lectures. Nine of them. Don't anthropomorphise your tech. Own the first draft. Engage your system two before you hit submit. Do a renewal of the mind audit. Go for a walk without headphones and bring an unsolved problem instead. These aren't anti-AI positions. Richard uses AI every day. They're ways of staying the author of your own thinking rather than outsourcing it quietly, habit by habit, prompt by prompt.

We ended in territory I hadn't expected: people who have formed genuine emotional attachments to AI companions, including some who wanted to save a version of ChatGPT they considered a life partner. Richard didn't dismiss them. He talked about individual circumstances, about what leads someone to that point, about the fact that no one is beyond help. That felt like the right note. Curiosity over judgement. Understanding before prescription.

The takeaway I keep turning over: critical thinking doesn't maintain itself. It has to be chosen, practised, and protected. In a world designed to shortcut it at every turn, that takes intention. It always has. It just matters more now.

Richard's guardrails will be available at renewyourmind.net. Go and find him there.

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This was made with humans.

Your host - Shaun Phillips

Editor: Glen Boswell
https://astralforgefilm.com
https://www.instagram.com/thebozzyman

Original music composed and produced by Brokli - https://youtube.com/@iambrokli

Original logo illustration and in video podcast graphics by Jesse Rist - https://instagram.com/jesse_rist

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Leslie has 40 years in software engineering. He wrote safety-critical aviation code for the Airbus A321 with no internet, no code libraries, and no AI. And he still cannot stop exploring what comes next.

That context matters. Because when Leslie talks about AI, he is not speculating. He has watched this story unfold in real time across four decades. That is a perspective you cannot fake.

One thing that landed early was the parrot analogy. When you ask AI a question, it tokenises your input into numbers and predicts what tokens to send back. It has no concept of what the words mean. It is doing what the parrot in the pet shop does when the door opens. It says hello because it heard other people say hello. It does not know what hello means.

That sounds simple. But sit with it for a moment. Because it changes how you think about the frustration you feel when AI gives you something that seems completely wrong. It is not being careless. It genuinely does not know what it is saying to you.

The conversation about AI and art stayed with me too. If you use AI to create work in the style of Rembrandt and sell it as something of value, Leslie made the point plainly. If you were doing that with a paintbrush and an easel, we would call it forgery. So what is it when you do it with AI?

But there is another side. Leslie cannot draw. If he wanted to create a children's book, previously he would have had to find and instruct an illustrator, which would have taken time and effort he did not have. AI changes that. It is not aping anyone's style. It is enabling something that simply would not have existed otherwise. The question is not just can we. It is what are we creating, and for whom.

And then there is the bigger picture. Before mechanisation, most people in most countries worked on the land. That changed. Offices may be next. Leslie's view is that ultimately this comes down to consumer choice, not businesses. Businesses optimise for shareholder value. If it is cheaper to use AI, they will. What we choose to buy, and who from, is where the real lever sits.

The raging river analogy was the one I keep thinking about. It is moving so fast and changing direction constantly. But as Leslie said, if you are in the boat, you have got a chance of travelling along the river.

Get in the boat.

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This was made with humans.

Your host - Shaun Phillips

Editor: Glen Boswell
https://astralforgefilm.com
https://www.instagram.com/thebozzyman

Original music composed and produced by Brokli - https://youtube.com/@iambrokli

Original logo illustration and in video podcast graphics by Jesse Rist - https://instagram.com/jesse_rist

Follow us for episode clips https://www.instagram.com/betterwithhumans

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Connect with Shaun on Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/shaunph/

One of the most interesting conversations I have had recently was around something most of us carry every single day without really questioning it anymore.

Our phones.

Richard Lalchan joined me on Better With Humans and we explored what smartphones, social media, and now AI are actually doing to us, particularly our children. Not from a fear perspective. From a human perspective.

One thing Richard said really stuck with me. Kids do not yet have the neurological hardware to make long-term decisions about technology designed by multi-billion dollar companies whose business model depends on attention.

That lands differently when you stop and think about it.

As parents, leaders, educators, and people working in technology, we cannot just ask: “What can this technology do?”

We also need to ask: “What is this technology doing to us?”

I resonated deeply with the conversation around endless scrolling.

• Books have an ending.
• Conversations have pauses.
• Meals finish.

But many apps are intentionally designed without an endpoint. That changes behaviour over time.

The other part that really hit me was this idea that boredom is not the enemy.

Some of our best thinking, creativity, reflection, and emotional processing happens in quiet moments. Moments that are increasingly being filled by notifications, scrolling, and constant stimulation.

And this is not about blaming parents. Life is hard. Parenting is hard. Leadership is hard. Sometimes people just need five minutes of peace.

What matters is that we are willing to step back and honestly examine the systems shaping our lives and our children’s lives.

• Not just accepting technology because it exists.
•  Not assuming progress automatically equals good.
•  Not waiting twenty years before asking difficult questions.

Technology should equip, empower, and encourage people.
Not quietly replace human connection, critical thinking, and presence.

Grateful to Richard for such an honest and thoughtful conversation.

Come on people. Let’s do this.

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This was made with humans.

Your host - Shaun Phillips

Editor: Glen Boswell
https://astralforgefilm.com
https://www.instagram.com/thebozzyman

Original music composed and produced by Brokli - https://youtube.com/@iambrokli

Original logo illustration and in video podcast graphics by Jesse Rist - https://instagram.com/jesse_rist

Follow us for episode clips https://www.instagram.com/betterwithhumans

All episodes and news at https://www.betterwithhumans.com

Want to watch episodes instead, check out https://www.youtube.com/@betterwithhumans?sub_confirmation=1

Connect with Shaun on Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/shaunph/

The way we create. The way we think. The way we live.

And most of us have not stopped to ask whether we actually chose this.
I am Shaun Phillips. And I have been sitting down with the people right in the middle of it. 
Industry leaders. Creatives. Thinkers. People navigating the shift in real time.
Not polished takes. Not press releases. Honest conversations.
One idea keeps coming back.
If we choose the speed of AI today, we are borrowing intelligence from the future.
What does that actually mean for us?
That is what this show is about. Not the technology for technology's sake. What it means to stay human through it.

We borrowed something without asking.

They were weak. Weedy. Because nothing pushed back..

That is the question underneath all of this. Not just what AI can do for us. What happens to us if it quietly removes the very things that make us capable?

Let's find out what is better with humans.

Send us Fan Mail

This was made with humans.

Your host - Shaun Phillips

Editor: Glen Boswell
https://astralforgefilm.com
https://www.instagram.com/thebozzyman

Original music composed and produced by Brokli - https://youtube.com/@iambrokli

Original logo illustration and in video podcast graphics by Jesse Rist - https://instagram.com/jesse_rist

Follow us for episode clips https://www.instagram.com/betterwithhumans

All episodes and news at https://www.betterwithhumans.com

Want to watch episodes instead, check out https://www.youtube.com/@betterwithhumans?sub_confirmation=1

Connect with Shaun on Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/shaunph/