Andrea Gagliano | The Intersection of Arts and Technology

<p>When Andrea was studying math as an undergrad, she was required to take an arts class in order to graduate, and soon discovered that she loved poetry. She learned that the process of writing a poem was often similar to solving a complex math problem—just starting with one part, and then doing one more, and gradually the rest is revealed. She enjoyed it so much that her first machine learning project in graduate school was on poetry/sonnet generation. </p><p>Andrea wanted to blend technology and art in her career and Getty Images turned out to be the perfect place to combine her two interests. Getty Images curates and manages a huge library of images and videos that are used in editorial news, websites, social media, billboards and more. She started as a data scientist two years ago, and is now leading the AI/machine learning team to develop new tools to help clients more effectively use Getty’s creative assets. She explains that many of their creative clients come to the site and don't have the language to describe the types of images they're looking for. Andrea’s team is building models to help clients find images when they don't have the words to articulate their vision. Another machine learning project they are working on is how to identify awkwardly posed “stocky” photos vs. the more realistic photos that clients are looking for.</p><p>She is currently doing more painting than poetry, and also sees parallels between painting and computer vision. She explains that when you start with a blank canvas, you have to think about shapes, lines, negative space and colors. It’s a similar process to how a machine comprehends pixels and the relationships between colors, contrast, shapes and textures.</p><p>Andrea created a special photo exhibit for the WiDS Stanford 2020 Conference that illuminates concerns about image manipulation while also posing provocative questions about gender and leadership. In the exhibit, she used machine learning (style GAN) to transform pictures of US presidents, ranging from George Washin