S5E14 Algorithms, Beauty, And The Artist: Gretchen Andrew

2025-12-08

Download

Spill the tea - we want to hear from you!What if the internet that trained today’s AI also rewired our sense of beauty, originality, and self? We sit down with artist and former Googler Gretchen Andrew to explore how algorithms shape culture—from who gets seen on social platforms to why so many rooms, faces, and feeds now look the same. Gretchen’s path from information systems to the Whitney offers a rare inside-out view: she uses AI not to generate images, but to expose how machine-enforced stand...

Spill the tea - we want to hear from you!

What if the internet that trained today’s AI also rewired our sense of beauty, originality, and self? We sit down with artist and former Googler Gretchen Andrew to explore how algorithms shape culture—from who gets seen on social platforms to why so many rooms, faces, and feeds now look the same. Gretchen’s path from information systems to the Whitney offers a rare inside-out view: she uses AI not to generate images, but to expose how machine-enforced standards flatten difference and reward sameness.

Gretchen breaks down the feedback loop that began a decade ago when adtech and SEO drove the kind of content the web produced. Those archives became the fuel for generative models, and now those models steer taste back into the feed. We talk practical signals for spotting AI images, the difference between building your own dataset versus prompting in a black box, and why the best AI artists still make work that is unmistakably theirs. Her Facetune Portraits turn invisible edits into physical marks, revealing the embedded judgements inside “beautifying” tools and how they travel from screens to surgeons’ offices.

The conversation gets personal and urgent. Filters can destabilise your self-image even when you know how they work. Plastic surgery trends among men and women rise as we optimise our 2D selves for Zoom and Instagram. For artists worried about replacement, Gretchen offers a path forward: study art history to know what’s actually new, build a practice that explains why the tool matters, and lean into the messy human qualities machines can’t convincingly fake. If you care about AI, culture, and creative integrity, this one will challenge how you see your feed—and your face.

Enjoy Gretchen's work: https://www.gretchenandrew.com/facetune-portraits/facetune-portraits-gretchen-1

Enjoyed the conversation? Follow the show, share this episode with a friend, and leave a review to help more curious listeners find us.

Support the show

Comments (3)