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Deep learning is a crucial step toward achieving true AI--but the human brain still reigns supreme. This may be the first time in AI's history when a majority of experts agree the technology has practical value. From its conceptual beginnings in the 1950s led by legendary computer scientists such as Marvin Minsky and John McCarthy, AI's future viability has been the subject of fierce debate. As recently as 2000, the most proficient AI system was roughly comparable, in complexity, to the brain of a worm. Then, as high-bandwidth networking, cloud computing, and high-powered graphics-enabled microprocessors emerged, researchers began building multilayered neural networks--still extremely slow and limited compared to the human brain, but useful in practical ways.