But at Berklee, future composers, songwriters, and musicians are also concerned that the use of AI could steal from the work of virtually all past artists, hindering their ability to develop their own voices and destroying career opportunities.
The latest counterattack began when the school advertised a class called “Bots and Beats: AI and the Future of Songwriting” in an Instagram post on March 30th. Although the elective class has been in place for several years, students opposed to the use of AI said this was the first time they had heard of the post. And they weren’t happy. (One line of the post: “Hear Drake and Grimes features on your tracks using realistic voice clones.”)
“We’re not afraid of being left behind,” said Andrea Recalde, a fourth-year music business management and songwriting student. “We’re afraid it’s going to take over us. We’re afraid it’s going to take over our love for our craft, it’s going to take over our community, it’s going to take over everything.”
Coco Martins, a third-year jazz composition and songwriting major, helped organize a meeting Tuesday between student groups opposed to the AI songwriting course and songwriting department chair Rodney Alejandro.
“It’s really upsetting to think that people won’t be able to use their imagination and creativity to express their individual identity,” said Martins, who performed at local Phoenix jazz clubs in high school. “Because what we write and create is inherently very personal to us.”
Ricciarde said she asked the dean at the meeting why she thought the school needed to learn about simple AI tools in class. “This is a prestigious school, at least that’s what I thought. I came here to learn from the best students,” she said.
“Why should I go to a school where I’m told I’ll have access to great musicians, industry experts, talented composers, lower fees, and listen to plagiarized content that I can learn from AI?” Martins said.
Barkley said in a statement to the Globe that he teaches students what they need to know. “As an artist-first institution at the forefront of contemporary music and performing arts education, Berklee has a responsibility to prepare students to navigate the technologies impacting the creative industries,” a spokesperson wrote. “We will continue to do this in line with our core principles.”
On campuses and across the creative industries, from Hollywood to the media, AI is disrupting the way nearly all content is produced, sparking debate over whether computer-generated work will fuel a boom in productivity or kill the soul of arts and culture.
Berklee officials have long touted AI as an inevitable technological development that students will have to grapple with in the classroom, whether or not they support its use in music production.
Mark Ethier, executive director of the Berkeley Institute for Emerging Arts and Technologies, told WBUR last week that AI “can be used for good or for bad.” He likened AI to the introduction of drum machines, saying that while it may have eliminated some jobs (and drummers), “it also became the foundation of hip-hop.”
The course description for “Bots and Beats” said students would be “tasked with working with AI to generate original lyrics, melodies, songs, and recordings.” At the same time, students will “consider whether they should do it at all, and the legal and ethical implications of doing so.”
Ali Heasley, who is nearing completion of a degree in music production, organized an online petition asking Berklee to waive the class and use AI tools in other classes. The petition has so far attracted more than 330 signatories (it’s unclear whether all of them are affiliated with Berkeley).
Heasley said AI can be discussed and debated in schools, but not in classes where students need to participate using AI apps.
“What worries me is that generative AI is being incorporated into the syllabus of these classes,” he explained. “You can’t have a discussion about ethics and at the same time have students use these products for homework.”
Some Berkeley faculty have also expressed concerns about AI.
Marty Epstein, a classical music composer who has taught at Berklee for 34 years, said he is seeing a growing problem with students submitting papers written with AI and worries that the technology will erode students’ creative development as artists.
Epstein said he was disappointed to hear last week that a demonstration of Google’s Gemini chatbot encouraged faculty to use AI in their research. “I raised my hand,” Epstein recalled. “These things make mistakes.”
AI-produced music using the popular app “Suno” etc. The Cambridge-based school also doesn’t have the quality expected of Berklee students, said Nicholas Urey, who teaches arrangement and composition classes. Mistakes that are obvious in AI-generated videos, such as too many human fingers, are equally obvious to the professional composer in AI-created music, where notes, melodies, and compositions are poorly placed.
“All I hear is the seven-fingered, three-armed song,” Yury said. “I think it’s puzzling that Berkeley would want to have anything to do with it.”
Schools across the country are figuring out how best to incorporate AI tools into a variety of classes. Research has shown that while AI tools can be useful when used to replace routine tasks and brainstorming, they are useless when used to replace an artist’s own judgment and originality.
“It could be productive for young musicians to use AI to study styles, test ideas, and overcome the blank page,” says Jackson Lu, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan professor who worked on one of the studies last year. “If they use it to avoid developing their own ears, skills, and artistic identity, that’s much more problematic.”
Berklee’s Bots and Beats course is taught by associate professor and songwriter Ben Camp, who is listed on LinkedIn as a part-time advisor to Suno. Camp did not respond to requests for comment.
Students who met with Mr. Alejandro on Tuesday said they brought up Mr. Camp’s work with Mr. Suno as a potential conflict of interest.
“Their response was that some professors are in other sectors of the music industry,” Recalde said. “I said it’s not the same as getting paid by Suno AI to promote Suno AI.”
Suno said he aims to develop software that helps people be more creative, rather than replacing them. This app blocks users from uploading or requesting songs by artist, song title, or lyric style.
“We’re building features with and for artists, and they’re shaped directly by feedback from the artists, songwriters, and producers who use them in their creative processes,” the company said in a statement. “Today’s students will help define what the future of music looks like, and schools like Berklee play a critical role in helping students understand the variety of tools that can support their work.”
Some Berkeley professors and students also objected to a recent faculty newsletter that included advice and videos about incorporating Suno into classes.
“Whether you’re brainstorming an arrangement style for a recital or demonstrating an idea to students, Suno Studio lets you experiment and sketch musical ideas at the speed of thought,” the newsletter states. “Students can use it to create and practice backing tracks and try out different arranging styles for recitals.”
Mr. Urie The instructor said he felt that advice was counterproductive. “This is not a creative job, it’s a toy,” he said. “I work to encourage creative excellence and help students discover their own musical voice.”
Aaron Pressman can be reached at aaron.pressman@globe.com. follow him @Ampressman.
