Tell, draw, repeat--iterative text-based image generation

When people create, it's not very often they achieve what they're looking for on the first try. Creating--whether it be a painting, a paper, or a machine learning model--is a process that has a starting point from which new elements and ideas are added and old ones are modified and discarded, sometimes again and again, until the work accomplishes its intended purpose: to evoke emotion, to convey a message, to complete a task. Since I began my work as a researcher, machine learning systems have gotten really good at a particular form of creation that has caught my attention: image generation. Looking at some of the images generated by systems such as BigGAN and ProGAN, you wouldn't be able to tell they were produced by a computer. In these advancements, my colleagues and I see an opportunity to help people create visuals and better express themselves through the medium--from improving the user experience when it comes to designing avatars in the gaming world to making the editing of personal photos and production of digital art in software like Photoshop, which can be challenging to those unfamiliar with such programs' capabilities, easier.