But at Berklee, the future composers, songwriters, and musicians are also worried about how using AI may be in effect stealing from the works of all prior artists, interfering with their ability to develop their own voices, and destroying their career opportunities.
The latest contretemps started when the school promoted a class called “Bots and Beats: AI and the Future of Songwriting” in a March 30 Instagram post. Though the elective class had been running for several years, students opposed to using AI said the post was the first they’d heard of it. And they weren’t pleased. (One line from the post: “Use realistic voice cloning and hear Drake or Grimes feature on your track.”)
“We are not scared that it’s going to leave us behind,” said Andrea Recalde, a fourth-year student studying music business management and songwriting. “We’re scared that it’s going to take us over. We’re scared that it’s going to take over the love we have for the craft, take over our community, take over everything.”
Coco Martins, a third-year student majoring in jazz composition and songwriting, helped organize a meeting on Tuesday between a group of students opposed to the AI songwriting course and Rodney Alejandro, dean of the songwriting department.
“It’s really upsetting to think that people will stop being able to use their imagination and creativity to express their personal identity,” Martins, who performed at local jazz clubs in Phoenix in high school, said. “Because the things that we write and create are so inherently personal to us.”
Recalde said she asked the dean at the meeting why the school thought they needed to learn about simple AI tools in classes. “This is a prestigious school, or at least I thought it was, where I’ve come to learn from the best of the best,” she said.
“Why would I go to the school where I was told I would have access to amazing musicians and industry professionals and talented composers to have that be cheapened, to hear some plagiarized content that you can learn from AI,” said Martins.
Berklee, in a statement to the Globe, said it was teaching what students needed to know. “As an artist-first institution at the forefront of contemporary music and performing arts education, Berklee has a responsibility to prepare our students to navigate technologies impacting the creative industries,” a spokesperson wrote. “We will continue to do so, in keeping with our guiding principles.”
Across campuses and creative industries from Hollywood to the media, AI is roiling the way almost all content is produced, sparking a debate over whether computer-made works will empower a productivity boom or kill the soul of artistic culture.
Berklee officials have previously touted AI as an inevitable tech development that students should grapple with in the classroom, whether they approve of using it to make music or not.
AI “can be used for good and it can be used for bad,” Mark Ethier, executive director of the Berklee Emerging Artistic Technology Lab, said on WBUR last week. He compared AI to the introduction of the drum machine, which may have eliminated some jobs (and drummers), “but it also became the basis of hip-hop,” he said.
The course description for “Bots and Beats” said students would “be tasked with generating original lyrics, melodies, songs, and recordings in collaboration with AI.” At the same time, students would also be “exploring whether you should be doing it at all, and the legal and ethical implications it has to bring.”
Ari Heasley, who is close to receiving his degree in music production, organized an online petition calling on Berklee to abandon the class and the use of AI tools in other offerings. The petition has attracted over 330 signers so far (it’s unclear if all of the signers are linked to Berklee).
AI could be discussed and debated at school, Heasley said, but not in a class that required using AI apps to participate.
“What worries me is that generative AI is built into the syllabus of these classes,” he explained. “You can’t have a discussion on ethics and make students use these products for homework at the same time.”
Some Berklee faculty have also expressed reservations about AI.
Marti Epstein, a composer of classical music who has taught at Berklee for 34 years, said she faced a growing problem from students handing in AI-written papers and fears the technology will erode students’ creative development as artists.
Epstein said she was disappointed to hear faculty encouraged to use AI for research in a demonstration of Google’s Gemini chatbot last week. “I raised my hand,” Epstein recalled. “These things make mistakes.”
Music produced by AI, such as using the popular app Suno, which is based in Cambridge, is also not of the quality expected of Berklee students, Nicholas Urie, who teaches classes on arranging and writing music, said. Mistakes that are obvious in AI-generated videos, such as people with too many fingers, are just as obvious to him, a professional composer, in AI-made music with poorly arranged notes, melodies, and compositions.
“All I hear is seven-fingered, three-armed songs,” Urie said. “I find it baffling that Berklee would want anything to do with it.”
Schools across the country are trying to figure out how best to incorporate AI tools into various classes, if at all. Research has found AI tools can be helpful when used to replace routine tasks or for brainstorming, but not when substituting for an artist’s own judgment or originality.
“If a young musician uses AI to study styles, test ideas, or overcome a blank page, that may be productive,” said MIT Sloan professor Jackson Lu, who worked on one of the research studies last year. “If they use it to avoid developing their own ear, craft, and artistic identity, that is much more problematic.”
Berklee’s “Bots and Beats” course is being taught by Ben Camp, an associate professor and songwriter who also lists themself on LinkedIn as a part-time adviser to Suno. Camp did not respond to a request for comment.
Students who met with Alejandro on Tuesday said they brought up Camp’s work for Suno as a possible conflict of interest.
“Their response was that, well, there are professors who are part of other parts of the music industry,” Recalde said. “I said it’s not the same to be paid by Suno AI to promote Suno AI.”
For its part, Suno said it aims to make software to help people be more creative, not replace them. The app blocks users from uploading or asking for songs in the style of an artist or song name or lyrics.
“We build our features with and for artists, 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 an important role in helping them understand the range of tools that can support their work.”
Some Berklee professors and students also objected to a recent faculty newsletter that included advice and videos about incorporating Suno into classes.
“Whether you are brainstorming arrangement styles for a recital or demonstrating an idea to a student, Suno Studio allows you to experiment and sketch out your musical ideas at the speed of thought,” the newsletter said. “Students can use it to create backing tracks to practice over or experiment with different arrangement styles for their recitals.”
Urie, the instructor, said he found the advice counterproductive. “It’s not creative work, it’s a toy,” he said. “I am in the business of encouraging creative excellence and helping students discover their own musical voices.”
Aaron Pressman can be reached at aaron.pressman@globe.com. Follow him @ampressman.