From the extraordinary/chastening book Automate This: How Algorithms Came to Rule Our World, by Christopher Steiner:
“… The audience then voted on the identity of each composition.* [Music theory professor and contest organizer] Larson’s pride took a ding when his piece was fingered as that belonging to the computer. When the crowd decided that [algorithm] Emmy’s piece was the true product of the late musician [Bach], Larson winced.” (*There were three, one each by Bach/Larson/Emmy-the-algorithm.)
” … Which haiku are human writing and which are from a group of bits? Sampling centuries of haiku, devising rules, spotting patterns, and inventing ways to inject originality, Annie [algorithm] took to the short Japanese sets of prose the same way all of [Prof David] Cope’s. algorithms tackled classical music. ‘In the end, it’s just layers and layers of binary math, he says. … Cope says Annie’s penchant for tasteful originality could push her past most human composers who simply build on work of the past, which, in turn, was built on older works. …”
We’ve included more from Steiner’s book, and some related other stuff in an attached PowerPoint mini-presentation.