Do you want a fun iPhone game that combines cats with a stealth lesson in artificial intelligence and machine learning?
Of course you do. And thanks to the oddly titled while True: learn(), you’re about to get your chance. Check out the game’s new trailer, which landed ahead of this week’s release of while True: learn() on iOS.
As can be seen from the above trailer, the game’s story deals with a cat who’s also a master programmer. (Hey, they’ve got to learn something through those nine lives!) You set about making a cat-to-human translation program, and wind up developing a whole bunch of other AI tools, too. As developer Nival writes:
“The game is loosely based on real-life machine learning technologies: from goofy Expert Systems to mighty Recurrent Neural Networks, capable of predicting the future. Don’t worry: it all plays out as a puzzle game. No coding experience required!
Train yourself into a data science wizard!
Drag objects around your screen with a mouse! Connect them with lines (oh yeah)! Try. Fail. Optimize. Try again. Then press “Release” button and see that sweet pieces of data flow smoothly through your screen.”
What makes while True: learn() nifty is that you actually get a crash course in the principles of machine learning. No, you won’t be coding like a master at the end, but unless you’re already an AI whiz, you’ll come out of it with a much deeper knowledge than you had going in.
The game launched on Steam earlier this year, but this is its debut on iOS. If you’re interested in checking it out, you can place your preorder in the App Store here. While True: learn() costs $4.99, and will run on any device upgraded to iOS 11 and above. It’s expected to launch on August 22.
Luke Dormehl is a U.K.-based journalist and author, with a background working in documentary film for Channel 4 and the BBC. He is the author of The Apple Revolution and The Formula: How Algorithms Solve All Our Problems … and Create More, both published by Penguin/Random House. His tech writing has also appeared in Wired, Fast Company, Techmeme and other publications.
