Nicole He on talking to computers

Nicole He is a creative technologist whose work lives in the space between video games, physical computing, and witty conceptual art. With experience advising projects for Kickstarter and imagining projects for Google, she’s programmed AI to converse with Billie Eilish for Vogue, physical sensors that help users swipe on a dating app and a Twitter bot that regularly photographs her growing fig plant. As Nicole embarks on two long-term interactive projects—one is an arts-funded experimental game that uses voice technology, and the other is a commercial indie game—she finds herself more and more interested in immersing herself within the world of games. Here, we speak with Nicole about what distinguishes the industry of video games and that of creative technology, the particularities of one’s voice as a method to activate technology, and how behind every digital project is a living, breathing human.