Artificial Intelligence on the iPhone

On a first pass, the iPhone appears to be the perfect platform to deliver on the promise of the field of Intelligent Agents. It's a moderately powerful computer with a number of integrated sensors in meatspace (touch, orientation, location, audio, and visual) as well as connectivity to the web and relevant virtual sensors (search, subscription, message passing, etc). The platform could host the ultimate interactive intelligent software agent, but like the vagaries of the field from which this promise came, it is not clear what actions and behaviours such a virtual personal assistant can or should mediate.

I've had my eye out for any iPhone apps that directly utilize some form of artificial intelligence. I say 'directly' because unlike apps that indirectly exploit such technologies, those that advertise the far are easier for me to find via search.

I have come across a number of demonstration apps that appear to be written by enthusiasts. There are cellular automata simulations such as Lifegame that provides an implementation of Conway's game of Life. There are fractal geometry implementations that use the touch screen interface to zoom such as Mandelbrot. There is at least one chat bot app called Amy AI. Other examples include speech recognition like google mobile app, image recognition like SnapTell, and talk of augmented reality applications on the horizon. There are also related science applications like programming references, graphics calculators, circuit simulators, and many others.

I keep finding I have free time to burn on the phone, but find the games pointless. I have been thinking that the iPhone platform would be perfect for so-called games with a purpose as a more meaningful diversion. I have also been thinking that interactive computational intelligence approaches may be a lot of fun, especially applied to open ended problems like automated controller design and simulation in 2D or 3D environments (like soda race) or morphology evolution (like Karl Sims classical works).

I've idly been looking into this and have stared poking around some open source 3D engines for the iPhone such as Oolong and SIO2. Not sure where this will go, but I would much rather be exploited as a subjective human fitness function while killing a spare 20 minutes on a train than play another round at a vapid arcade game.