Oscar-winning American filmmaker Martin Scorsese surprised a lot of film enthusiasts by joining Black Forest Labs — a tech firm trying to integrate artificial intelligence into filmmaking — as an adviser. Talking about using Black Forest’s technology for storyboarding, the director said, “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. 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… Now, with this tool, I can share what I’m visualising more clearly and efficiently to my creative team — the production designer, art designer, and cinematographer — for them to build on to enrich cinematic intelligence.”

Talking about using Black Forest’s technology for storyboarding, the director said, “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. 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… Now, with this tool, I can share what I’m visualising more clearly and efficiently to my creative team — the production designer, art designer, and cinematographer — for them to build on to enrich cinematic intelligence.”

While Scorsese appeared to hail AI as the next frontier in the development of cinema, fans were less than enthusiastic about one of Hollywood’s most iconic minds buying into the AI wave.

One user said it was part of a worrying trend of senior filmmakers such as James Cameron, George Miller and Ridley Scott pushing AI tech.

A few others contended that the even more worrying thing was that these older directors will probably not be around to see the effects of the tech “revolution” they’re advocating for.

As storyboarding is a proper function on any film set and storyboard artists working hard to bring a director’s vision to life, people were concerned about the impact this would have on their livelihoods.

Someone brought up Japanese animation legend Hayao Miyazaki’s principled stance against AI with a video in which he calls the idea to integrate AI in artistic work like his “an insult to life itself”.

Some fans, grieving the way the internet does, chose to meme their way through the situation.

Hollywood films aren’t the only arenas where humans are gradually being pushed out by AI. Bollywood is experimenting with the technology , there are attempts to bring an AI-generated actor into the mainstream and Vogue even featured an ad with an AI-generated model last year.

Last year also saw a trend where people used Chat GPT to remake their pictures into Miyazaki’s signature art style . We have no doubt he wasn’t happy about this.