Art Directors Guild accuses Martin Scorsese of betraying human artists over AI endorsement

Martin Scorsese Partners with Generative AI Company for Storyboarding

Martin Scorsese, the Oscar-winning director behind classics like "Raging Bull" and "Goodfellas," has sparked controversy by joining Black Forest Labs as an advisor and promoting the company's generative AI model Flux 1

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. In a video posted by the AI startup, Scorsese demonstrated creating a storyboard featuring a medieval street using the technology, praising its "cinematic intelligence" 3

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. The director told the New York Times he's interested in using AI for storyboarding—the preproduction process of visualizing scripts and blocking scenes before shooting begins 2

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"For 70 years, I've been creating my own storyboards," Scorsese explained. "There's always been this problem of how do you communicate what you see in your head to your cast and crew. 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" 1

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. He emphasized that cinema is only around 125 years old and filmmakers must remain open to how it can evolve 2

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Art Directors Guild Condemns Partnership as Betrayal of Human Artists

The Art Directors Guild Local 800, a chapter of the IATSE union, issued a scathing open letter Wednesday directly addressing Scorsese and accusing him of "turning his back on the human artists who throughout his career have helped him create his most memorable works" 2

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. The ADG represents storyboard artists, concept artists, illustrators, graphic artists, set designers, production designers, and other art department professionals—the very workers whose roles Scorsese's AI endorsement appears to threaten 3

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"He claims the solution is the use of this generative AI program to do the jobs that are rightfully the jurisdiction of Art Directors Guild Local 800 artists and designers—human artists and designers who have been successfully collaborating with directors to visualize their films for decades," the union stated 1

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. The guild took particular issue with Scorsese's suggestion that he needs AI to communicate his creative vision, arguing that union members have performed this exact function throughout cinema history.

Union Highlights Job Displacement and AI Trained on Stolen Work

The ADG's statement emphasized that Scorsese's promotion of AI for storyboarding "circumvents the input of Art Directors Guild Local 800 art directors, graphic artists, illustrators, production designers, scenic artists, set designers, and other talented Union professionals" 2

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. The union also pointed out a fundamental ethical concern: generative AI models can only produce outputs by studying copyrighted material, likely without consent, credit, or compensation to original artists 2

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"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," the letter stated 3

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. This criticism strikes at the heart of ongoing debates about how AI companies train their models and whether they should compensate artists whose work forms the foundation of these systems.

Entertainment Business Contraction Amplifies Concerns

The timing of Scorsese's AI partnership is particularly sensitive for the ADG, which has been hit hard by recent contraction in the entertainment business. In 2024, the union paused a training program for young professionals due to mass unemployment among union members in covered crafts 3

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. According to annual filings with the Department of Labor, the union's membership declined from 3,492 in 2022 to 2,966 in 2025—a significant drop that underscores the precarious position of art department professionals 3

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A 2024 study commissioned by the Animation Guild and The Concept Art Association identified ADG members as among those most threatened by generative AI technology 3

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. For an industry already grappling with job losses, the endorsement of AI tools by one of cinema's most respected figures represents more than philosophical disagreement—it signals potential acceleration of job displacement that's already underway. Scorsese has previously spoken about AI as a tool for the next generation of filmmakers to explore, but as one report noted, he's now shown them "one use that they absolutely should not explore" 1

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