“I Love Boosters” and “Sorry to Bother You” filmmaker Boots Riley addressed Martin Scorsese’s AI endorsement this week, writing on social media on Wednesday that the Oscar winner “doesn’t give a f—k.”
Scorsese, 83, shocked many Tuesday when he announced that he had signed on as an advisor for Black Forest Labs, an AI startup specializing in image generation. In addition to publicly endorsing the company, Scorsese starred in a video that was shared online Tuesday by Black Forest. In it, Scorsese described a shot he wanted to pre-visualize that was entered into Black Forest’s FLUX generative AI software, which then generated images fitting his descriptions.
“My guess: at 83, they gave his family a gang of money (they throw tens of millions left&right) he wanted the income stream4them& feels like ‘AI’ will fall on its face anyway, so he doesn’t give a f—k,” Riley wrote on X of Scorsese’s AI partnership deal. “If that’s not the case, extraf—k him. Separately, go see ‘I Love Boosters’ today.”
“Like- yeah the problem with filmmaking is ‘we didn’t have the tools to be creative before this,’” Riley added in a subsequent tweet, mocking Scorsese’s defense of the AI technology. In another tweet, the writer-director further criticized Scorsese for helping to legitimize the AI startup.
“To be clear, my vitriol is not about him using it, I’d likely simply sneer at that in private. It’s about him using his cache 2 promote this and attempt to push the industry toward it. They need him,” Riley explained. “1 Trillion spent on generative AI and it’s not saving anyone or changing film yet.”
My guess: at 83, they gave his family a gang of money (they throw tens of millions left&right) he wanted the income stream4them& feels like "AI" will fall on its face anyway, so he doesnt give a fuck
— Boots Riley (@BootsRiley) June 3, 2026
If that's not the case, extrafuck him. Separately, go see I Love Boosters today https://t.co/hFAU4gLqPe
In his Tuesday comments, Scorsese advocated for the value of using generative AI software like Black Forest Labs’ to help pre-visualize and storyboard shots for his films without sacrificing “quality or craft.”
“Cinema is a young medium, only around 125 years old, so we have to be open to how it can evolve,” Scorsese said in his statement. “I utilized 3D with ‘Hugo’ and de-aging technology for ‘The Irishman.’ Now, with this tool, I can share what I’m visualizing more clearly and efficiently to my creative team—the production designer, art designer and cinematographer—for them to build on to enrich cinematic intelligence.”
“I am super excited about the fact that someone like Martin Scorsese — one of the greatest, most impressive filmmakers to exist — is using our technology and curious about exploring it,” Robin Rombach, the chief executive of Black Forest Labs, said in an interview Tuesday. “It’s such a great proof point that this works.”
The use of AI in the filmmaking process continues to be a divisive topic throughout the Hollywood community.
While filmmakers like Guillermo del Toro and Seth Rogen have disavowed the technology altogether, others, like Scorsese, have advocated for its use as a new tool for creatives. At this year’s Cannes Film Festival, jury member and “The Substance” star Demi Moore said resisting AI “is a battle that we will lose, so to find ways in which we can work with it, I think, is a more valuable path to take.”
In Sept. 2024, “Avatar” filmmaker James Cameron joined the board of members for Stability AI, the developers of the text-to-image generative AI model Stable Diffusion. At the same time, Cameron’s most recent film, last year’s “Avatar: Fire and Ash,” included a message in its release assuring audience members that AI was not used in any capacity in the making of the film.
