“As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to type prompts into generative AI systems.”

Last week, the New York Times ran a headline that made my blood run cold. No, not that one. Not that one either. This one:

Martin Scorsese Is Embracing A.I.

With horror, I read on:

Martin Scorsese, the living embodiment of cinema as high art and a conscience for modern Hollywood, on Tuesday threw his weight behind an A.I. start-up that specializes in image generation.

Not to profane with a comparison, but this is like if Jesus pivoted to “embracing” sin. Marty—us movie fans call him Marty as if he’s a close personal friend—is the patron saint of cinema. When he comes down the mountain Moses-style with a new declaration from the creative gods above, we listen. Or, we used to.

Unfortunately, it appears the LinkedIn mind virus has infected its latest victim. “I’m interested in the intersection of technology and storytelling,” Scorsese is quoted as saying. “And seeing how that can push the bounds of creativity to create deeper and richer experiences for audiences.” Translation: they drove a dump truck full of money to his house (he’s not made of stone, after all).

My first reaction to this article was cope. “This can’t be real. It’s not his fault. He’s been tricked!” I quickly assembled a list of possible explanations for this sudden swerve into AI boosterism:

1. Elder abuse. (Seems highly unlikely. He seems like he’s having a great time cameoing in his daughter Francesca’s TikToks.)

2. Senility. (Same. Even at 83, he seems sharper than most dudes half his age.)

3. He has zero understanding of what this technology is or how it works, and someone else he trusts put this “partnership” in front of him to endorse. (From the Times article: “A spokesman for Mr. Scorsese said the filmmaker’s connection to Black Forest Labs came through BroadLight Capital, an investor in the start-up. BroadLight was co-founded by Rick Yorn, who is Mr. Scorsese’s talent manager.”)

So: pretty obvious what happened here. It doesn’t make it any less disappointing. Or any less shameful.

I could rant about this for the rest of my life, but instead what I want to focus on specifically is the three minute promo video Black Forest Labs released highlighting this partnership. It actually serves as a perfect example of why this is such a profoundly bad idea, and why the results will always be inherently rizzless.

(Trigger warning for Scorsese fans: It is painful to watch our guy debase himself like this, even knowing he only has himself to blame. And also to be clear: I’m not recommending you dignify this ad by watching it. Much like Dante, I’ve descended into hell for you.)

First of all: this video is only three minutes and ten seconds long. You’d think they’d have such an overabundance of incredible footage to share, this might crack double digits. But maybe Black Forest Labs are just bashful.

The first thirty seconds is dedicated to Scorsese musing aloud that the alchemical act of translating the ephemeral visions in a filmmaker’s mind into a storyboard has “always” been a problem.

The thing is, it actually hasn’t??

In fact, storyboards—rough drawings meant to communicate a visual idea from director to cast and crew members—are something that can be done by a talented, prodigious 11-year-old.

To storyboard a movie, you need:

1. A pencil.

2. A piece of paper.

End of list! Now, I get it: it is unfortunate for the Silicon Valley types that you can’t turn selling pencils and paper into a subscription-based model that requires giant, polluting data centers to function (yet!!). But it does not get any simpler than this: these are the only two “tools” you need to sufficiently complete this task. Pack your things and let’s all go home.

But wait, you say! Certainly there is a huge difference between juvenile stick figures and fully-rendered graphics, yes?

Indeed! And guess what? There are *does some quick math* one million human artists on planet Earth who are available and eager to work with Mr. Scorsese. It makes you think: maybe the problem isn’t an inability to take “what you see in here (points at brain)” and get it “there (paper).” Maybe the real “problem” has more to do with producers looking for ways to cut costs (i.e. pay less living wages and healthcare). Let’s be careful not to extrapolate from that theory that this is the not-so-secret endgame behind all AI companies. We don’t want to besmirch anyone’s intentions.

[Sidebar: Maybe this is just me reading the footage generously, as I can’t help but love Marty despite this horrible betrayal, but man he’s struggling here. He starts rambling about how unpredictable elements like weather can impact the shoot. You almost feel bad for him. Almost.]

The heart of this piece of marketing—the section where they are going to convince us that this is in fact a truly transformational piece of software, destined to become an instrumental filmmaking tool for generations to come—is a grand total of… 48 seconds long.

Scorsese asks the two Black Forest Labs guys to generate “a town… a kind of gnarled, old, almost medieval town… in the Caucasus.” Then it shows us the generated “storyboard.” For the nitpickers out there, there are a few details to quibble over:

1. It looks nothing like what a medieval town in the Caucasus region would actually look like.

2. None of the buildings have doors.

3. The car might be a tight squeeze for Godzilla. It’s huge.

He asks if they can refine the result by adding “some hills” and making the street “narrower.” The prompter enthusiastically responds “Okay!” but we never actually see the “improved” version (I wonder why!). The best reaction shot they could get of Marty after showing him the results are him half-heartedly saying “This is getting there.”

lol.

In my frame-by-frame analysis, I also discovered something that really tickled me. The footage of the laptop where they are typing the prompt has likely been altered in post.

The prompt text has been added. You can tell because the other text on the screen is slightly blurry due to the shallow depth of field. And if you watch the typer’s fingers, they don’t match. My guess is this had to be fixed because neither of the two tech bros sitting there could spell “medieval” or “Caucasus” on the spot (admittedly difficult words to spell).

Anyway, then they move on to generating the driver of the absolutely gigantic Ford Model T (probably how they got around in medieval times, right?): “[he’s] very Eastern European… almost like someone you’d find in the street… older, well, probably in his 40s but would look like hes in his 60s, longish hair.” The shown result is a mashup of every character actor you can think of as he smokes a cigarette, with the smoke from the cigarette magically wafting through the windshield.¹

Now, here’s where things get interesting. What happens when you take that exact generated result, and feed it into Google Images? Well…

Hmm. The AI overview thought it was an image of Michael Caine in Children of Men. That’s weird.

Turns out, over 95% of Google Images’s other search results based on Black Forest Labs’s generated image were examples from other movies too, including:

• Robert Mitchum in Dead Man (Jarmusch)

• David Carradine in Kill Bill (Tarantino)

• Judd Hirsch in The Fablemans (Spielberg)

• James Whitmore in The Shawshank Redemption (Darabont)

• Harry Dean Stanton (multiple examples, obviously)

You may have identified a trend. These are all older character actor types. I’m not accusing the fine folks at Black Forest Labs of using copywritten films in their training data. No, wait. Yes, I am.² Obviously they have. Seems bad! And maybe something Scorsese might want to mull over as he’s tossing and turning at night, trying in vain to fall asleep.

Despite how pathetic the first two minutes of this video are, I think it’s the final minute that really sells you on just how little there is to show off here.

This is bottom of the barrel key jangling for Film Bros. And you may have noticed: it has nothing to do with this AI “tool.” It’s literally just “remember how Goodfellas rocked?” Embarrassing.

There is no way around it. This sucks. It sucks and is heavily damaging to both Scorsese’s legacy (less important) and to the Helm’s Deep-esque battle between art and evil that we are currently engaged in (more important). Scorsese should be our King Théoden, not joining forces with Saruman.

Here’s hoping one of Marty’s old pals can vanquish the Wormtongue whispering in his ear, and help him restore his kingdom before it’s too late.