Just days after declaring his support for the use of AI in filmmaking by collaborating with Black Forest Labs, Martin Scorsese has garnered criticism for his stance, with the Art Directors Guild issuing a lengthy statement against him. The IATSE union released a strongly worded message against the legendary director, describing his backing of artificial intelligence as a “betrayal” of cinema.
Martin Scorsese slammed by Art Directors Guild for supporting AI
On June 9, the Art Directors Guild took to social media to call out the Shutter Island director for partnering with an AI start-up called Black Forest Labs.
“Oscar-winning director Martin Scorsese is turning his back on the human artists who throughout his career have helped him create his most memorable works,” the message read on X (formerly Twitter).
The union slammed Martine Scorsese for claiming that a generative AI program would help filmmakers “communicate what you see in your head to your cast and crew.” Art Directors Guild argued that his AI-centric solution actually circumvents the input of “art directors, graphic artists, illustrators, production designers, scenic artists, set designers,” and other professionals in the sector.
The statement continued, “Generative AI is only capable of producing this type of ‘cinematic intelligence’ by ingesting large swaths of copyrighted work, likely scraped from the internet without consent, credit, compensation, or transparency.”
The union further concluded its message against Martin Scorsese by stating, “To think their professional contributions can be mimicked or outshone by generative AI, which is built on work likely stolen from them and many other artists from around the world, is a betrayal of the collaborative nature of cinema.”
Notably, Martin Scorsese confirmed his collaboration with Black Forest Labs earlier this month through an announcement video. In the clip, the 83-year-old filmmaker used their FLUX image generation model to work through a storyboarding session and described a scene generated by the said AI model.
