Boots Riley
Filmmaker and musician
The rapper-turned-director of Sorry to Bother You led a wave of criticism in 2026 when Martin Scorsese endorsed an AI company, arguing the real danger is powerful artists using their prestige to push the industry toward AI.
Why this score
How the formula works →- +2.3antiCalls AI overhyped
- +1.8anti3 anti-AI statements (forceful)
- ±0nuancedHolds a documented two-sided view
- ±0nuancedFears big tech will monopolize AI
Weights, statement counts, the ×1.25 multiplier for having a stake in an AI-impacted field, and the formula’s smoothing are already baked in — the points add up to the score (direction-free evidence pulls toward the middle instead): Firmly Anti-AI · 4.1/10
In his words
My vitriol is not about him using it… It’s about him using his cache to promote this and attempt to push the industry toward it.
Companies are lumping everything under AI to get money, and they’re building out to say that they have the ability to do these things.
Biography
Boots Riley (born 1971) is a rapper, communist organizer, and filmmaker — the frontman of The Coup, director of the surreal anti-capitalist satire Sorry to Bother You (2018) and the Amazon series I’m a Virgo (2023). Politics has always been the engine of his art.
The Scorsese row
In mid-2026, after Martin Scorsese endorsed the generative-AI company Black Forest Labs, Riley led a torrent of criticism. He speculated that at 83 Scorsese had been handed “a gang of money” and no longer cared how the tools were used — but he clarified that his anger was not about the personal choice: “my vitriol is not about him using it… It’s about him using his cache to promote this and attempt to push the industry toward it.”
Riley’s objection is economic rather than technophobic. Echoing Jaron Lanier, he argued that AI is really “the product of a lot of people working together who don’t know that they’re working together and aren’t getting paid for it,” and that in a fairer system the same tools could be genuinely collaborative. Under current incentives, though, he says companies are “lumping everything under AI to get money.”
Quote sources
- Deadline, 2026(deadline.com)
- Variety, 2026(variety.com)
Sources & further reading
Canonical record: https://battlelines.ai/topic/boots-riley
