0:00 AI can be a development partner for you. This instant answer is taking away some of our ability to explore. At the beginning it was all perfect. It looked perfect but then people figured out it's not real because... You're growing and actually the AI is supporting your growth rather than actually it being something that is taking it away.

0:29 Screenwriting can be lonely. It is just you, your script and a nagging feeling something is not working. But you cannot always afford a script consultant and your mates are biased. So what if AI could be your thinking partner in the room? One that asks you the right questions instead of just handing you the answers.

0:52 We get into why most AI writing tools flatten creativity rather than unlock it. What Chekhov's gun has got to do with all of this. And how moving between Tel Aviv, Barcelona and London shapes the way you see people and tell their stories. Let's uncover what is better with humans.

1:12 I'm Shaun Phillips and I'm joined by Itai Hasid. We recently met at a training course on AI. Itai is a writer, filmmaker, tour guide and creative technologist based in London. With over 20 years of experience in storytelling across film, television, content and cultural projects.

1:32 He is now developing an AI screenwriting advisor that helps writers think more deeply about their stories without replacing their voice. He's also the co-host of two Hebrew podcasts, Rock, Paper and Silicon, where he explores technology, philosophy and human behaviour. And Zvaot Olam, a true crime podcast about real stories of murder, cults and human darkness from around the world. Itai, welcome to the Better With Humans podcast.

2:01 Thank you for having me. So I think we're going to have a shortage of things to think about. There's some really interesting things going on there. Let's just start off with so you mentioned about being a screenwriter and creating an AI tool around helping writers think more deeply.

2:25 And I find it really interesting because there's a lot of people concerned about the impact of human creativity, particularly in the arts and around AI and particularly with actors and screenwriting. And people talking about, you know, there becoming full AI general created movies. So kind of what was your thinking around coming up with a tool that uses AI to help screenwriters?

2:52 So I think it happened very naturally for me because I come from the world of creative writing and writing scripts. I made some films and also on the other end, I work with technology constantly. Like I'm working in SEO and content creating and research and technology is something that I really used to play with. And so when the first AI came, I started to play with it and I thought that, OK, of course you can generate content, you can do a lot of crazy stuff.

3:35 But what's more appealing to me, it's how to use it, not to give you just the outcome of an answer, but how you can use it to deploy more creativity in your work. For instance, it can be a development partner for you. So it began with me just playing and asking that I give me 10 ways that this story can end, like the really basic stuff.

4:10 And it's OK, you can do it. But then I thought, OK, how can I use AI not to block my creativity, but to inspire me? And I thought, OK, let's try and see if we can build me exercise like a gym for creativity. And that's how I began to think about this programme of using AI to help others to create more deeply and to understand themselves better and the story better. Yeah, I mean, that's really interesting. It makes me think.

4:47 I know when we spoke previously, which is one of the inspirations for asking to come on the podcast was. It was about the access to knowledge, you know, that if you were going to write, you're going to read. You know, hundreds of screenplays because you wanted to draw the inspiration. I mean, in essence, AI can help us do that sooner.

5:10 We could do that 100 or we could understand some of the elements within those. And I found that quite interesting because it's not taking away, maybe taking away some of the work we have to do. But then for you to read through all those scripts to get to the point at which you find the inspiration. And is that — I mean, is that something that?

5:35 Yeah, I think that a writer still needs to read other people's work because I really enjoy reading other scripts for people like films that they love and even films that they don't love. Just to read how they — like the basics, how they structure everything, how they develop, how they're using the emotional state, the turning point, the payoff, the planting, all of those technical things. But then AI can help us develop better stories, I will say, because screenwriting is often really lonely stuff. You walk alone, you don't have anyone else with you in the room.

6:20 It's just me, my dog and like my toys over here. And I can feel sometimes that, OK, there is a problem in the script. Something is not fitting. It's not in the right place.

6:33 Like, but I don't know if it's the structure, the character, the pacing. It can be overwhelming sometimes. And if I want to ask for help, I have my friends. But most of the times my friends are biased because they're my friends or maybe they know what I want to do in the script because I spoke with them already.

6:55 And I can turn to a professional, to someone who is a script consultant. But this will cost me a lot of money. And a lot of the times they will just tell me this is the problem. Do this, do this.

7:11 And so it's kind of blocking your creativity. And that's also something that I saw other programmes do. Because when I started to think about my solution about the AI — it's been called the gym or script advisor.

7:29 I don't know. I don't know how to call it yet because it's — I'm still building it. But I saw that there are others that have already developed programmes like that. But most of them just tell you, OK, here are your problems. You need to do ABC in order to fix it.

7:46 And that's a problem for me because you have the — it's a flattening effect. You know, it's everything sounds similar. It's the same because it's trained on the same scripts. And what I love about art and screenwriting is it's the difference between people.

8:07 Because if I have a problem, me and you will have the same problem. We will have different approaches based on our experience, based on our creativity. And if everyone will have the same answer to the problem, that is not art. It's just problem solution.

8:25 And I don't want to see films that are just problem solutions. I want to see art. I want to see how different people approach things. Yeah, that's really interesting. It reminds me — I don't know if you've seen the film Operation Mincemeat.

8:42 Yeah. And I've got a friend who's a screenwriter and I think he's still working. I haven't spoken to him in a while, but we used to be part of an accountability group. And every week it was how much time he spent on his screenplay. I think he's probably still working on it.

8:58 So I can see how it can benefit him in terms of just getting the inspiration to go to the next thing. I think about Operation Mincemeat because he mentioned the subplot, you know, that there's this other plot that's going on with his brother along. And he was saying how it was such a great example of the use of having this subplot that then has to close,

9:20 has to come to a close as they meet up with the main plot by the end of the movie. And it reminds me of that just in terms of what you said about there's a difference between technically good and something that actually just uses the right techniques. And you end up with a movie that you really enjoy watching.

9:41 And I watched the movie and I thought, oh, yeah, and I really enjoyed it. But it's also interesting to understand those elements. It's a bit like — I don't know why — I mean, the Matrix is — I love the Matrix. I watched it again recently.

9:54 And it comes to mind just because this idea of once you see something, you can't unsee it. And I think that's the thing — as I find out more about elements in screenwriting, I find myself not being able to not think about it. Like the first thing I heard a while back was about Chekhov's gun,

10:14 you know, where if you introduce something into the movie in a big way, you've got to — it's got to be used. If there's a gun and it's clearly there, it's going to have to be used for something at some point. Otherwise, it's kind of something that's never finished off. And so I think it's so interesting, as I say, with what you're saying, this element of, well, actually the AI tools you've seen —

10:37 technically, they can tell you whether or not it's any good. But actually, this idea of taking that and going and inspiring you and even, I suppose, coaching you. I mean, I'm a coach myself. And with coaching, my job is to help people get the answer out rather than —

10:58 but obviously, I can sort of lead a little bit in terms of the questions that I ask. And I think if you've got something that's — maybe you've got an AI tool that's recognising that, OK, technically here, there's an issue, but it's actually going to help the writer. If I ask the right questions, the writer can help understand for themselves what the problem is and come up with an answer that maybe is less influenced by the AI tool instead of the AI tool saying, well, OK, you know, there's this problem and you could solve it this way or you could do it that way. Yeah, because there is not one truth in art.

11:39 Like sometimes you have a pacing issue. It's often just a symptom. The root of it can be weak motivation, low stakes. Maybe the dramatic pressure is unclear to you.

11:56 So the result is weak pacing or pacing issues. But what caused the pacing issues? It's something you need as an artist. You need to understand.

12:08 So you need to really think about it. You need to figure out the entire script. Sometimes you need to reread it. Reread it.

12:16 Rewrite it even, in order to fix something in the midpoint of the film. So this is one of the things that made me think about this solution, something that will help you also to point out, OK, you have a problem here, here and here. But here are some exercises you can do. Here is something that will help you think or rethink about the stuff.

12:41 Or maybe it can be like five different things that you need to think about again and not just one thing, but you will get the scope of it so you can see and you can choose what kind of exercise will help you. Yeah. And I think it was actually today on the BBC News or today or yesterday. There was a mention about AI and the impact on thinking that this instant answer is taking away some of our ability to explore.

13:14 You know, previously, they say before the internet, you might have had to go to a number of different books or encyclopaedias in the library to piece together the answer. Then you had Google. And at least with Google, you still had to — somebody might give you the answer, but often you might have to go and click on a few different websites and combine it.

13:33 But now this ability to go, hey, you know, here — can you give me the answer. And of course, from what I hear you saying, it's really — it's not that you want the AI to give you the answer. You want AI to actually inspire you, to help you to understand what the problem is, to provide exercises you can do that will help you develop that screenplay in a better way. And what is it about — why do writers often need more questions than they need answers?

14:06 It's a good question. Answers can sometimes close it, close you like — OK, here is the answer. Close the story very quickly. But when you give someone, especially writers, you give them an answer too early.

14:25 It just solved the wrong problem sometimes. And it's not like — as I said, if the pacing is an issue, you can just turn up the pacing. But you need to understand why there is an issue in the first place. You might say to someone, add a twist here or make this one go in this direction and not that direction.

14:47 But the real issue could be somewhere deeper. It can be unclear motivation, it can be weak stakes. It can be that the writer is missing the emotional world of the characters. So you need — the good question will keep the story alive.

15:08 It will force the writer to look again, to rethink about the characters, what the character is avoiding, not what he needs, what he's really trying to avoid. And it's not often the same answer. So in writing, the strongest discoveries usually do not come from something someone tells you.

15:32 It can be from you thinking. And we think and we rethink. And like for me, it can be a week after — like I can think about something and then just after a week, like, OK, this is how I will do it, because —

15:51 I will give you an example. Every time I send my scripts to a friend and they give me their feedback, I don't write anything down and I don't touch the script again for about a week because I want to see what things really stay with me. And this is the same way.

16:09 I don't want someone to tell me or something to tell me this is the problem. I want something to tell me you have a problem. Now think about your problem. And if you think you'll be more creative, and it also will be your art again and not the AI art.

16:28 It's also a question of authorship. Like who owns the final product, the AI or the person who creates the art? Yeah, and I suppose it is the element of growth, isn't it? I love that because you're really looking at —

16:44 you can grow the skill. And then it's almost like a fork in the road, isn't it? In terms of, you know, you can take the one road, which is, well, I can just get it to write my book. I could get it to write my screenplay. I can get it to do my graphics.

16:58 I can get it to create whatever it is. You know, and I'm a part of that as well. There's not really going to be a great deal of satisfaction from that. But also, what did you learn? Yeah.

17:10 Whereas if you go down the road with what you're talking about of using AI to actually help. And I love what you said, keeping the story alive. I feel like that's a tagline. I love that. Just keeping the story alive.

17:23 And it's keeping you growing, isn't it? That each time you're developing and you're actually growing and actually the AI supports your growth rather than actually it being something that is blocking, that is taking away, that is actually reducing your ability to be creative.

17:40 It's actually saying we want to increase your ability to be creative. It's also connected to the thing you said about what you heard on the BBC, that if you're just giving the answer, it's blocking you. It's not — OK. So you got the answer.

17:55 What now? What will you do with the answer? And if I just get the answer all the time, I won't be able to know what to do with it. And if it will keep me on my toes, will keep me thinking again and again and again, then I can understand it better. I can use it better.

18:13 Hmm. Yeah. So in terms of — in terms of obviously, you know, you've had all this experience in filmmaking. And a lot of people will turn around and they say, oh, yeah, I can, you know, AI can do everything. I can do this. So what would you say to that in terms of, you know,

18:32 what don't you think AI can replicate in terms of filmmaking? So first of all, AI can do everything. It's — it's not a question of if it can do it or not do it, but it's also something that — sometimes in filmmaking, it's the moment.

18:51 It's something — it's the imperfection of stuff. Like you can — you can write a perfect script and then you give it to a director. You give it to an actor and then, you know, the actor walks up on the wrong foot and he doesn't have the energy that you thought it would have, the energy you imagined it would be.

19:14 But sometimes it can be better for your script because it can give it something that you never thought about. Or maybe it's a budget problem. You thought about making a film in a valley with a lot of — I don't know — a lot of extras, 100 extras. And then it's an indie film. You have no budget at all.

19:36 You have 10 people that are friends of the director who came. And it changed. It can change everything, but it sometimes can leverage, make it better. So I give you the correct — and I'm doing it with both — the correct answer. But sometimes the correct answer isn't what the script needs.

19:59 The script needs some imperfection. It needs the stuff that you can't plan. So, yeah, mistakes can make something better than the original idea that you would never have thought about because this is not the right answer.

20:17 Yeah, yeah, I can see that. And there's a couple of things that brings up for me. One is that, you know, they're already seeing people in the way that they are creating things in AI getting it to create imperfections, which is kind of — Yeah, I saw there are people that generate pictures and because at the beginning it was all perfect.

20:42 It looked perfect. But then people figured out it's not real because in real life you have depth of focus. You just blink. You just move your head and stuff that reality brings in that AI cannot replicate. So a location — if I thought it needs to be in a dark room, but the director doesn't have the budget or it's not just the budget —

21:11 it can be the timetables. They need to film it outside. So the location will change everything, even if the script will remain the same. The location itself can become better in this certain set of circumstances. So the AI cannot replicate this because it does not live in the imperfection, does not live inside the risk of the moment.

21:37 Like the stuff that you need in order to make things alive. Yeah, yeah, that's so good. And the other thing that came to mind as well is, you know, I quite like Marvel movies. And it's — seen in Thor Ragnarok where the scene with the get help scene with Thor and Loki, which is amazing.

22:00 That was an improvised scene. And it's amazing how, like you said, there are those elements — you can create something. But that human improvisation, because two people come together and go, oh, wouldn't it be funny if we did this. And also the chemistry between them.

22:18 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because if I write a dialogue between two people, it will be at the end — at the end, it will just be myself because I write the dialogue. I write the two people — it's not like I have a writing room like in Hollywood where you have 10 people that will help me write and each one will have the dialogue and monologue for each person, each character.

22:43 So this is something that the AI cannot replicate. Something that filmmakers and filmmaking taught me is that creation is not just the intelligence. It's the encounter between stuff, between people, between objects, even. Yeah, and I totally resonate with that.

23:04 And I've done a little bit of acting, not in film, but in plays and musicals. And there was one particular one we did called The Southwark Mysteries at Southwark Cathedral. And we had the writer, John Crow, who wrote The Southwark Mysteries. There was a scene in there where I'd been given a part as a drunk.

23:28 And it's a mystery play and it's about the life of Jesus through the times of Southwark. And it's a scene. So Jesus dies in St. Guy's Hospital. And then I come on.

23:38 I'm this drunk and I didn't get it. I was like, I don't understand — why am I now in this scene where I'm in a — it's in a urinal, public urinal and, you know, there's some broken mirror. And there's just — and I spoke to the director and I spoke —

23:54 I don't really — I'm not really — you know, what am I — what is my kind of vibe here?

23:59 Why am I angry? And then he said — because earlier on, I'd been one of the sick people as well. They'd been healed by Jesus. He was like, well, what it could be is that basically, you know, you've been healed by Jesus.

24:11 Now he's died. You feel kind of betrayed because he's now gone and — oh, OK, cool. But that wasn't necessarily why he originally wrote that in the script. But because of, like you said, the encounter of two people, then what ended up coming was a unique thing that happened because of just that conversation and two different people coming together.

24:34 I will give you another example. There is one of the best masterpieces in cinema history. It's the Bicycle Thief. I don't know if you saw it, but at the end of the film, the little child — he cries because the people yelled about his father and because the father stole the bicycle and the director —

24:57 he really made the child cry because he blamed him for something on set. And it's something that — OK, you can teach someone to cry. You can fake the cry. But if it comes from deep down, from something that you really feel responsible for and have responsibility about, then your cry will be something different.

25:21 It will be from deep. It will be the truth. Yeah, yeah, I see. It's so interesting you say that because coming back to that same example when I was in the Southwark Mysteries, I was a drunk, right?

25:32 So I had to — to do that, I basically went back into times in my youth, you know, when I had been drunk, and sort of did that a few times to really get myself into much more of an actual state. And also when I was in the second scene, when Jesus passed away, then I did the same — I just thought about — I'd go back and think about when my dad had cancer.

25:58 You know, just a time that I know was upsetting and I wouldn't want to do that every week. We only did it for a few days. But I know for some people, particularly in live performances, they do that. But yeah, that's using what we have, isn't it?

26:13 We bring in our human part into the mix to make it something that kind of feels authentic and not just entertains, but resonates with people. Yeah. So it's one of the things you mentioned was the podcast. Tell me a little bit more about the podcasts you're involved with.

26:35 So there are several of them, two of them. The first one, it's called Zvaot Olam. It's horrors of the world. And this one is just, you know, true crimes about the darkness of people, the cults, the things that you don't want to listen to.

26:55 But — I don't know why — I mean, my wife got me into it. We are really into it. Something about seeing people that really aren't like you, people that will do the most horrible stuff in the world. And there is something really fascinating for me about it because I don't want to see or hear something about myself.

27:18 I know myself. I want to see something about someone who is completely different because then I can ask myself, wow, how can someone be so bad or so crazy? And the other one, it's Rock, Paper, Silicon.

27:38 I'm doing it with my father and also my wife. She's come back again. And it's really — like he invented — he's a philosopher, also an artist.

27:47 And his name is Mookie Tenenbaum. And this is really something. His philosophy is something that he invented called misogist. The point of it is everyone, everything that we are doing is to escape pain, to escape fear.

28:07 So this also shaped my understanding of film and about creation because the idea of people — all the time when you write, it's the hero, he wants something. He wants to get the love. He wants to get the medicine.

28:28 But why does he want to get the medicine? Because he's afraid of losing someone. So he's doing everything in his power not to feel this pain, not to be alone, not to confront his pain and his suffering and the stuff that emotionally will make him feel down.

28:53 And it's also something that I think — people are not all of the time driven by ambition or by pleasure or by rational thinking. Some of the time, or most of the time, what we do is really an attempt to escape, to escape suffering, to escape discomfort. Because also with AI, we are using AI because we need the answer. I don't like the feeling of not knowing.

29:23 So I will ask GPT, what is that and that? And this is the same thing. So for me, the mythological lens keeps me bringing the conversation back to the human being, back to what really makes us tick. Yeah.

29:47 Yeah, and I can see that. It really sits in well with the conversation, doesn't it? Because when we talk about film, books, why do we go to the cinema? Why do we watch movies?

29:59 It's because — most of the time for me, or video games or even board games. Some of it is I want to hang out with my friends. Yeah, I enjoy that. But even that in itself is also because it's a distraction, isn't it?

30:11 From the other things you kind of have to do. You know, we live life, don't we? And I have to — I've got to — I need money to do this. You know, somebody has a struggle with something.

30:22 I think you don't find people go, yeah, I just — I've got the most amazing life. And I know and I'm going to go in — you know, and that need to escape. There's always something, isn't there? There's always something.

30:32 And part of their amazing life may well be that actually they're going off and doing these various things because actually the reality is that they are escaping from maybe one thing that they're trying to not think about and not do. And that's kind of interesting in terms of, as you say, with AI, it's the human dynamic,

30:51 isn't it? Though AI is trained on humans, it's almost in a way being trained to be a collective of humans and this uniqueness. We are unique.

31:04 There isn't a single person that is exactly the same. I kind of have sometimes wondered over the years whether there are people who just look just like me because for some reason I thought — I used to think back, I have a face that people just go, yeah, have we met?

31:18 Or they say to me — you know, I had one — once, it was quite — when I was a younger teenager — and somebody said, oh, you look just like my boyfriend and introduced me to the boyfriend. He was not impressed. But this thing —

31:30 but then what I realised was more in my later life, it's about approachability. When somebody says, oh, you look familiar, it means that they've been reminded by something you're doing — mannerisms or face or the way you speak — of somebody that they know and are closer to.

31:49 So actually, it's just a wonderful thing — there's an opportunity there because somebody already feels like they have a relationship with you, already quite kind of knows you. And I think that is one of the dangers with AI and particularly, you know, it's been some of the models where they've been so overly friendly in terms of their responses.

32:11 And they're — because they're designed to be pleasing, to be like humans. And it's really interesting because I think — I've thought about it a lot more recently — thinking, well, wouldn't it be great if they were designed to be machines? Because, I mean, really, we don't need them to be like humans.

32:27 We just need them to — you know, what if AI was built to be like AI, to be something that is unique in itself as opposed to trying to replicate human behaviour. Yeah. What if it was built to be something that is unique in itself as opposed to trying to replicate human behaviour. Yeah.

32:44 Also, I will add to this and will say that what makes AI really emotionally powerful for me is — because AI is such an emotionally powerful tool, it also has a lot of danger inside it, because if it only helps us to avoid discomfort, it can weaken us because people need the discomfort sometimes in order to develop

33:11 themselves, in order to shine. And so if it will help us to face the complexity more clearly, then it becomes meaningful. And also, I've just listened to a different podcast with someone who is a doctor for AI and teaches at a university in Israel.

33:33 And he says that the thing that most fascinated him about AI is when AI lies to you, because this is something really, really humane — to lie. And the host says, but AI doesn't lie and he says, of course it does. We just call it hallucination.

33:53 We don't call it a lie. But when it hallucinates, it's kind of a lie. So he said this is something that fascinated him about AI. And if it can understand and it can tell you things that you want to listen to, that you want to hear.

34:11 Yeah, yeah, that's — I mean, the last thing is, is that challenge of — because it is making a guess. And isn't it? It's making a guess on what it thinks you want to hear. And that's the other thing, isn't it?

34:23 If you go — when we talked about the screenwriting side of it, if you're having AI give you ideas or give you an answer, it's giving you an answer based upon — you know, it wants to give you the answer you want. And so that is even less — you know, helping your creativity. Whereas, as you were saying, if you're actually coaching it out of somebody, getting questions and exercises to do that —

34:48 and what you say about the pain and suffering side of things, because I don't know who said this, but something I heard some time ago, and I've seen it in reality as well, that sometimes as humans — we'll stay in one place, we'll stay in the place of suffering until it gets so unbearable that we'll actually do something about it, that we'll want to move out of that space.

35:12 Yes, and to reach rock bottom in order to do something. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And in order to go, OK, you know, actually, I'm going to go and do this thing and then realise often, oh, gosh, I could have done this thing so many times ago. So as we sort of start drawing to a close, I would still like to just talk to you a little bit about your background in terms of, you know,

35:34 you've lived in Tel Aviv, Barcelona and London. And, yeah, how does that — I mean, I'm born and bred in the UK. My wife's an expat.

35:45 She actually grew up in Bermuda. And so I know some of her challenges. But how does moving between cultures, how has that impacted the way that you tell stories? Wow. So living between countries and continents and cultures, it teaches you that there is no place that is neutral.

36:08 Like every place has its own rhythm, its own humour, its own contradictions. So, for example, Tel Aviv is something that has intensity, has directness, has survival energy. But it's much more laid back. You have the sense of neighbourhood life and you have the politics is something that's really, really strong in both.

36:34 And in London, it's the layered, it's the multicultural, it's the history. So each of those countries taught me something different about culture, about persons, about human beings. And you become more sensitive to context because you realise that the same behaviour, if me and you will do the same thing in different places, it has different effects on people.

37:01 Like, for example, directness in Israel — directness, if you're direct with someone, it means you're honest. But in the UK, sometimes it can be aggression. People can think, oh, why did he say that? It's really aggressive for me to say that thing.

37:19 But it's from a different culture. So that makes me more sensitive to those kinds of things. And it's really, really useful for me as a storyteller, because characters are never just individuals.

37:43 They come from somewhere. They have backgrounds. They carry language, class, memory, geography. They're all different.

37:54 Even if they are all in the same group, each individual in the group has a different background. And it also made me more interested in the outsiders because I'm an outsider. I'm from the outside looking inside. So I can see different things about society, about places because of it.

38:17 I think I'm more sensitive to those things. And this is something I'm trying to bring out in my storytelling to help people see that. I will give you an example from my tour guide work, because I'm doing tours in Shoreditch, for example. And if you go now on Brick Lane, you see all the Bengali restaurants.

38:38 And you don't really understand why there is a huge Bengali community over there. But I will tell you, look, there is a Bengali community because of the immigration, because of the history of the UK. And before that, there were Jews over there. And they came because of the persecution.

38:58 They were running away from places and they ended up in Shoreditch because it was the lousiest place in London. And it's not all — like a street — it's not just a street. Yes, it's layers. Yes, it's history.

39:16 And it all affects how you perceive it, how you see it now. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. That's really interesting. It reminds me of a couple of things. One is I've had this example.

39:32 So back in the late 90s, I was in Tokyo and over here, you know, I was brought up — if you're having soup and you do it quietly, you don't make a lot of noise with it. You know, you don't sort of — you don't pick up your bowl and drink it. Whereas in Japan, the more noise you make when having your soup is a demonstration of how much you appreciate it.

39:54 And so coming back to the AI side of things as well. Thinking about one of the challenges with AI is we have to give it context. So if we don't give it the location, we assume that it has all the information that it needs. If we don't — you know, I mean, I think that's one of my take-homes from this conversation — is the importance of location

40:20 and in any writing, the elements of saying how it ties in with what we said about you moving around. You know, when you move somewhere else, like if that character is still doing the same things, they're going to behave the same way, because actually we kind of see that a little bit. I don't want to beat on American movies.

40:40 It's just that sometimes the American hero movies do tend to do that. They tend to take the character and the character just behaves in the same way — you're like, well, how are you getting away with that behaviour? Because you're in a different place.

40:53 So I think, you know, for me personally, thinking in terms of story writing, thinking, oh, yeah, maybe I've never really thought about what happens when you take a character and put them in a different location. I mean, you said even streets, right? Different from a place that they're familiar with to somewhere they're not familiar with.

41:10 It's also one of the reasons that I wanted to create the AI that will ask questions and not give you answers, because if the AI will give you answers in storytelling, in film-related areas, it will most of the time be based on Hollywood films. And if I'm Israeli or maybe Italian or Chinese, I don't know —

41:33 I have a different perspective. It's not the same films — because of the history, because of the cultural differences. So I want the creator to need to ask himself what to do. So one of the examples can be — OK, take this character and put them in a restaurant, in a Chinese restaurant.

41:54 How will they behave? And now take them into Japan. How will they behave in the high street of Japan or the high street in London? So this is the kind of exercise I want the AI

42:11 to suggest to the creator, because this will help them understand the characters better, the structure better. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you for having me. One last thing.

42:22 It's been great to have you. One last thing is how do people — if people want to actually get in contact with you because they're interested in the tour — they want to follow the journey, want to know when it becomes available. How would they get in contact with you?

42:34 They can visit my LinkedIn or my website. It's my website. It's in Hebrew. But today you can translate it with AI or Google.

42:43 And it's my name and surname. It's itaihasid.com. And also on LinkedIn, it's Itai Hasid. I believe.

42:50 I know there are 13 Itai Hasids in the world. That's it. But I think only two of us are on LinkedIn. So you will see a picture of mine.

43:01 I think I sent you the same picture. I sent it from — you can see it on LinkedIn. That's great.

43:07 So that's very easy then. Yeah. Very easy then. There are quite a few Shaun Phillipses.

43:11 So I have a bit more of a challenge. But yeah, thank you again. And yeah, I look forward to speaking again soon. See you.

43:17 Thank you very much. Thank you.