David Cope (born May 17, 1941, in San Francisco, California) is an American author, composer, scientist, and former professor of music at the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC). His primary area of research involves artificial intelligence and music; he writes programs and algorithms that can analyze existing music and create new compositions in the style of the original input music. He taught a summer workshop in algorithmic computer music that was open to the public (but not free) as well as a general education course entitled Artificial Intelligence and Music for enrolled UCSC students. Cope is also co-founder and CTO Emeritus of Recombinant Inc., a music technology company.