Martin Scorsese has drawn backlash after announcing a partnership with an AI company.The use of AI in filmmaking has become enormously contested inside of Hollywood, with supporters arguing that it can cut costs and speed up typically laborious production tasks, and detractors voicing concern about job losses, copyright infringement and potential destruction of human creativity.Scorsese has now voiced his support for elements of AI, partnering with a company named Black Forest Labs and expressing excitement at some of the technology they have to offer – specifically when it comes to using AI to create storyboards in the film pre-production process.“For 70 years, I’ve been creating my own storyboards,” Scorsese said in a statement. “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.”Martin Scorsese, who has voiced his support for some AI technology (Getty)Scorsese’s announcement sparked immediate criticism from some within the industry. Film concept artist Karla Ortiz expressed disappointment that such an important filmmaker was potentially putting her own work at risk.“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,” she tweeted.While animator and director Samuel Deats, who worked on Netflix’s Castlevania, tweeted: “It takes literally seconds for me to storyboard a shot, 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.” Scorsese joins a recent onslaught of celebrated filmmakers who’ve expressed support for AI, or partnered with AI companies. Last year James Cameron joined the board of directors of Stability AI, saying that the company would “unlock new ways for artists to tell stories in ways we could have never imagined”.Guillermo del Toro is among the filmmakers who’ve slammed the technology (PA)Steven Soderbergh also announced that he had used AI for a forthcoming documentary about John Lennon and Yoko Ono – but openly, as opposed to discreetly. “There’s a way of using AI in which your intention is to fool somebody or manipulate them, to create an image that you want them to think is real,” he said in an interview. “And then there’s a use, which is what we’re doing in the documentary, where it’s obvious that it is AI and that it is being used essentially in the way that you would use VFX or CGI or any sort of non-photographic technology.”Watch Apple TV+ free for 7 dayNew subscribers only. £9.99/mo. after free trial. Plan auto-renews until cancelled.Try for freeADVERTISEMENT. If you sign up to this service we will earn commission. This revenue helps to fund journalism across The Independent.Watch Apple TV+ free for 7 dayNew subscribers only. £9.99/mo. after free trial. Plan auto-renews until cancelled.Try for freeADVERTISEMENT. If you sign up to this service we will earn commission. This revenue helps to fund journalism across The Independent.Other filmmakers have expressed their loathing of the technology, with Guillermo del Toro saying last year that he’d “rather die” than use generative AI in one of his films. Christopher Nolan has also been a high-profile detractor of the technology.Scorsese, whose numerous classic films include Taxi Driver, GoodFellas and The Wolf of Wall Street, this week made an unexpected cameo on the cover art of the new Charli xcx album, and recently lent his voice to the Star Wars spin-off The Mandalorian and Grogu – playing a four-armed alien shopkeeper.