Can Computers Be Creative?

David Cope

SciArt in America just ran a story on David Cope, a computer scientist-musician in California (http://www.sciartinamerica.com/blog/-can-computers-write-meaningful-music). He has succeeded in writing software for generating music that is difficult to distinguish from music written by humans, J.S. Bach being one of his examples. To me this raises an important point: Can Cope’s software tell us something about Bach’s creativity – does it tap into his mind? I believe this line of research is more fruitful for exploring creativity and aesthetics than that offered by neuroscience.

See Chapter 8 in Colliding Worlds: How Cutting-Edge Science is Redefining Contemporary Art.