After director Martin Scorsese announced his involvement with AI company Black Forest Labs on Tuesday, Boots Riley appeared upset, speculating that Scorsese had joined the company as an advisor to support his family, and that Scorsese “doesn’t care” because he thinks AI “will flip anyway.”
the “I Love Boosters” filmmaker posted on X. “My guess is that at 83 years old and giving away a lot of money to his family (he’s given away tens of millions left and right), he wanted a source of income, and he doesn’t care because he feels like the ‘AI’ is going to fall on his face anyway. If not, just do the extra thing. On the other hand, let’s go see ‘I Love Boosters’ today.”
Scorsese announced Tuesday that he will be joining Black Forest Labs as an advisor to “push the boundaries of creativity” and help create storyboards and other visuals.
Riley wrote that his problem with Scorsese’s support for technology is not that he opposes the 83-year-old filmmaker’s use of AI in his films, but rather that Scorsese uses his influence to force others to use artificial intelligence.
“Well, the problem with filmmaking is that until now we haven’t had the tools to be creative,” Riley wrote in X. “To be clear, my point isn’t that he’s using it. I’m probably just deriding it in private. It’s that he’s using his cash to promote this and push the industry towards it. They need him. We’ve spent $1 trillion on generative AI and it’s still not going to save anyone or change movies.”
“Movie is a young medium, only 125 years old, so we must be open to how it evolves,” Scorsese wrote on the Black Forest website when his appointment as an advisor was announced. This will allow production designers, art designers and cinematographers to visualize more efficiently, he said.
Scorsese recently wrapped production on “What Happens at Night,” starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence.
Riley has been active on social media promoting his satirical capitalism comedy film “I Love Boosters,” which was released in theaters on Neon on May 22nd.
