Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the branch of computer science that is concerned with building smart machines capable of performing tasks that typically require human intelligence. These tasks include problem-solving, learning, reasoning, language understanding, and perception.

Foundations of AI come from multiple disciplines:
- Philosophy: Logic, reasoning, ethics.
- Mathematics: Algorithms, probability, computation.
- Economics: Decision theory and game theory.
- Neuroscience: Understanding how the brain works.
- Psychology: Human cognition and behavior.
- Computer Engineering: Efficient computing systems.
- Control Theory and Cybernetics: Feedback and control.
- Linguistics: Language understanding.
History of AI:
- 1940s–50s: Birth of computing and early neural networks (Turing, McCulloch & Pitts).
- 1956: Dartmouth Conference, birth of AI as a field.
- 1960s–70s: Symbolic AI and rule-based systems.
- 1980s: Expert systems and knowledge-based AI.
- 1990s–2000s: Statistical learning, probabilistic methods.
- 2010s–present: Deep learning, big data, real-world applications like self-driving cars and virtual assistants.