Artificial intelligence (AI) is defined as the intelligence exhibited by machines or software, as opposed to natural intelligence displayed by humans and animals. The document discusses the early history of AI from 1950 when Alan Turing asked if machines can think, to 1956 when John McCarthy coined the term "artificial intelligence". Current applications of AI include mobile phones, video games, GPS, voice recognition, robotics, and Deep Learning algorithms used by Google. The future of AI is seen in areas like self-driving cars, improved medical care, and enabling future exploration. Challenges to AI include computing power, tolerance, intuitive thinking, and judgment.