No Generative AI At Berklee- Disband Bots, Beats and Bytes

I've been a professional composer for near a decade. With many colleagues from Berklee. It would be a shame to see the quality of my peers decline from a loss of skill. Besides the detriment to their own students, AI is founded on stolen music. Countless artists did not give their permission to train these AI databases. Do better.

As a musician and music student I am baffled that berklee would do this, I fully expect them to back pedal on this but the fact It happened at all says alot.

Class of 2005 and working musician here. Yet another shamefully uncritical embrace of bad trends from an increasingly predatory industry by my alma mater. Berklee has been a laughingstock within musicians' circles for some time. Now, it will be a laughingstock for the ages. I'd say "do better" but who am I kidding. Abolish Berklee. Send the performance and Jazz Comp departments to NEC. Send everyone else to Emerson. It's sad but it's necessary at this point.

This is appalling and saddens me. Not a good look for Berklee (I spent my formative years there.)

As a current berklee masters program student, I am for the education about AI but NOT all for using AI as a way to generate music during assignments. It is unethical teaches AI more about how to infringe takes up world resources and water supply use and adds to the discourse and hardships that artists are facing with the widespread issue of AI in music today

For one of Americas premier collages for artistic endeavors, this is an incredibly stupid and ill advised move. I hope the person who suggested this class resigns.

HATE. HATE LET ME BEGIN TO TELL YOU HOW MUCH IVE BEGAN TO HATE.

In essence, teaching music students how to use AI in their music is helping destroy their future. This is not comparable to the drum machine, as the drum machine at least required some tangible human effort, whilst AI generated music requires no theory, no skill, and completely defeats the purpose of studying at an esteemed music school in the first place.

Very unfortunate behavior from an esteemed creative/music college. Do better, Berklee. You represent so many of us and so many great artist’s futures, don’t ruin it by damaging the craft. - Alumni 2018

Generative AI has no place in higher education, and certainly no place in songwriting.

Robo Livingston Taylor says, "data centers are too ugly to be popular in music!"

I am a student at berklee online and I personally think this is horrible. I love berklee and I have learned a lot from the amazing faculty there. But there are some issues— there isn’t much infrastructure for upcoming graduates to actually get internships or jobs in the music industry. It’s concerning, and to push out an AI course instead of focusing on that feels a bit tone deaf. If administration wants us to be prepared for the future, they should focus on helping connect students with jobs after college. Not teaching tools that steal from artists and make producers irrelevant.

Songwriter, cellist, composer here—let's do everything in our power to keep human beings as the sole creators of art. Encouraging the use of generative AI is completely against what any music school with a conscience should be doing right now.

As a Berklee grad, I'm appalled at the questionable use of AI in creative classes, and if I were a paying student now, I'd be angry being told to use it in place of struggling through every assignment fully myself.

Come on, guys. At best this is irrational, uninformed FOMO, at worst it's a deliberate attempt to profit off buzz at the expense of the most vulnerable in your community.

A school about the creation of music should not support technology that actively takes the creativity out of human's hands. Creation is about the heart that humanity puts into their work, about the connection of making something with others. We gain no value from the soulless steel of a robot's regurgitation of what we've already made.

Professional jazz pianist here, standing in solidarity!

I stand with the students against AI's looming threat to creativity and human value.

Schools should be promoting original contant, and outside of the box thinking, not teaching their students to use computers to do our jobs. Why would you pay for a music degree? If you're going to learn how to use a computer to do your job? Unbelievable…

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