The term Artificial Intelligence was coined by its creator John McCarthy (an American scientist). He defined it as the science and engineering of making intelligent machines. AI is when a computer makes decisions in a way similar to how humans do. The computer will somehow take into account its environment and take steps to help it reach predetermined goals. It is the theory that computers and mechanical objects could be made, that would be able to carry out actions that would usually require human brain power. While general artificial intelligence is the goal, researchers and programmers have achieved artificial intelligence for specific tasks in areas such as gaming, finance, medical care, robotics, transportation, telecommunications, and more."The aim of AI is to develop machines that behave as if they were intelligent." - John McCarthyNow this raises questions about what is intelligence, so the accepted definition for Artificial Intelligence is perhaps by Elaine Rich."Artificial Intelligence is the study of making computers do things at which, at the moment, people are better." - Elaine RichAlan Mathison Turing developed the Turing test which is still used to test if a machine is intelligent or not.Artificial Intelligence has many fields taking its foundation from AI. They include:Machine LearningNeural NetworksNatural Language ProcessingAutomated Planning, Scheduling and ReasoningKnowledge RepresentationVoice, Face, Object, and Character RecognitionNeural NetworksAnd a lot more.Many Programming languages having been developed since the day the term AI was defined. These include languages like IPL(Information Processing Language), Lisp (List Processing - Developed by the Founder himself), Prolog (PROgramming in LOGic) and Haskel.Today, AI is being used in everyday life and many people are even unaware of its usage, whether it be information retrieval by search engines, GPS in Vehicles, expert systems developed for symptom analysis, chatbots, weather prediction systems, high end games, and virtual assistants like Siri, Google Now, or S-Voice.Here are some specific applications for artificial intelligence:Banking - A computer may monitor stocks and trading, virtually trying various moves and activities that humans would be likely to do. Then any activity observed that does not match the rules for expected human activity gets flagged for observation and/or intervention by real humans. Banking computers may actually invest money for real as well.Customer support - Humans may speak to computers on the telephone and give it information they may otherwise give a human.Gaming - Computer characters in Video Games use AI logic, and computer versions of board games use AI logic as well.Mathematics - Mathematical calculations would usually require human brain power to carry out, but the calculator can do it by itself. This is not as exciting as a lot of other applications, but it is a very common one that many don't even think of as artificial intelligence.Music - Computers can programmed with Music Theory to help compose pieces similar to how humans compose music.Robotics - Modern robots can be made to be able to play chess and interact with customers.