This chapter introduces this book’s background, context, and perspectives. The current literature on the topic is vast, multidisciplinary, and hosting increasingly complex concepts, thus our purpose is to create a first stepping stone to the topic. Our main goal is to address the fundamental question, what is AI—where are we now, how did we get here and where are we going—from economic, societal, and technical perspectives. In this chapter, we seek to differentiate between AI conceptualizations, applications, and technologies by creating a summary of the parallel histories of the concept and discussing the lenses through various theoretical paradigms seek to understand AI.