Martin Scorsese is facing criticism after it was announced that he is investing in an AI tech company specifically aimed at the film industry.

On Wednesday, it was revealed that the Oscar-winning filmmaker has become an advisor to the AI brand Black Forest Labs, which specialises in text-to-speech generative AI.

While there’s no suggestion he intends to use it to help with storyboarding in the early stages of his filmmaking process.

“I’m interested in the intersection of technology and storytelling, and seeing how that can push the bounds of creativity to create deeper and richer experiences for audiences,” he said in a statement (as reported by BBC News).

“Remember, cinema is a young medium, only around 125 years old, so we have to be open to how it can evolve.”

He added: “For 70 years, I’ve been creating my own storyboards. There’s always been this problem of how do you communicate what you see in your head to your cast and crew. There are some things you have to see and feel.

“Now with this tool, I can share what I’m visualising more clearly and efficiently to my creative team.”

AI, of course, has become a hugely divisive issue within creative industries over the last few years, and was a major point of contention in the 2023 Hollywood strikes.

Since Scorsese’s announcement, he has faced backlash from many in the film industry, who have accused him of “throwing” storyboard artists “under the bus”.

One such critic was the artist Karla Ortiz, who has previously worked on numerous Marvel projects.

“He throws every single storyboard artist he’s ever worked with under the bus, as he demolishes their livelihoods with models that are likely trained on those storyboard artist’s same works,” Karla claimed. “To use his legacy and power for this is just so disgusting.”

TV director Samuel Deats also wrote on X that it takes “literally seconds for me to storyboard a shot”, insisting: “There is absolutely no reason to need AI built on the stolen work of millions of artists to storyboard your vision, have some damn pride and respect your peers.”

Others also pointed out that in a previous video featuring himself and his daughter Francesca, Scorsese seemed to baulk at the concept of using “AI for cinema”.

HuffPost UK has contacted Martin Scorsese’s team for comment.

Scorsese is best known as the director of films like Raging Bull, Goodfellas, The Wolf Of Wall Street and The Departed, for which he earned his Best Director win at the Oscars.

He is far from the only prolific filmmaker to face contention for his endorsement of generative AI.

Earlier this year, the announcement that Darren Arnofsky had produced a new series using AI animation was met with outcry, and while James Cameron joined the board of the AI company Stability AI in 2024, he later pointed out: “What generative AI can’t do is create something new that’s never been seen.

“The models [are] trained on everything that’s ever been done before; it can’t be trained on that which has never been done. So you will innately see, essentially, all of human art and human experience put into a blender, and you’ll get something that is kind of an average of that.”

While promoting his Academy Award-winning adaptation of Frankenstein, director Guillermo Del Toro claimed that he’d “rather die” than include generative AI in his own filmmaking.