Last week, the world seemed to inch a little closer to midnight. 

Reports emerged that China had spent the summer testing a nuclear-capable hypersonic missile. Yesterday Mark Milley, the US's top general, confirmed them.

Hypersonic missiles are the latest frontier in weaponry. They can travel at five times the speed of sound and evade air defence systems. The US and Russia have already conducted several tests.

The missiles could mark the launch of a new Cold War. I don't know if it's quite a Sputnik momentA period of Cold War fear in Western nations following the Soviet Union's 1957 launch of Sputnik 1, the first man-made satellite. ," said Milley, "but I think it's very close to that."

But according to a book by three of the world's greatest authorities, this is the least of our worries.

When physicist Robert Oppenheimer witnessed the first atomic bomb test in 1945, he quoted the Bhagavad GitaOne of the holy scriptures of Hinduism, which contains many of the religion's main doctrines. : "Now I am become Death, destroyer of worlds." Humanity had entered a new age haunted by the shadow of mutual assured destructionA military strategy in which an attack by one power would be met by a response from the other that would lead to the annihilation of both..

The Age of AI, by diplomat Henry Kissinger, computing professor Daniel Huttenlocher and former Google head Eric Schmidt, places humanity on the brink of an even more unpredictable moment.

The trio argues that artificial intelligence (AI) is the most dangerous technology humanity has ever developed. While nuclear weapons are expensive and closely guarded, AI can be developed easily and spread widely.

AIs have already exhibited some remarkable achievements. They can translate languages, recognise faces and detect lung cancer. 

Armies have begun to use automated weapons over human soldiers. In 2018, a drone almost assassinated Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. It costs about $1,000 to build such a device. Tech billionaire Elon Musk Tweeted in 2014 that AI is "Potentially more dangerous than nukes."

In some fields, AI has surpassed humans. Google's chess-playing AlphaZero has defeated programmes based on grandmastersA title awarded to the world's greatest chess players, second only to the World Champion. 1948 players have been granted the honour., using moves no human has come up with. Another AI algorithm defeated a US Air Force pilot in a dog fight, while a third discovered an antibiotic that scientists had failed to find.

For some, this presents a terrifying question. Do things learnt by AIs count as human knowledge? If not, we might no longer be the most intelligent creatures on the planet. The rise of AI could see our share of knowledge shrink, as machines come to know things we cannot even comprehend.

Others point out that AI remains limited. For a robot to learn the difference between an apple and an orange, it needs to be exposed to a vast amount of data. A child can do the same very quickly, then apply that learning to other situations.

AIs might beat us when it comes to pure logic, but there are different kinds of intelligence. They might never have the emotional intelligence acquired to emphasise, communicate and work together. 

They also lack true creativity. An AI can be programmed to make artwork. But they will never be able to capture the artistic intelligence we see in the paintings of RembrandtAmong the Dutch master's works are a series of penetrating self-portraits. or hear in the music of BeethovenGerman composer (1770 - 1827) whose intense, dramatic work revolutionised classical music..

Absolutely, claim some - and technology is to blame. The internet has granted us access to knowledge with a flick of a finger. As a result, our attention spans have shortened and our ability to work things out ourselves has diminished. This will only get worse as we come to rely on AI more and more.

Not at all, say others. AI might be able to calculate better than any human. But it is humans who create them, set their purpose and reap the rewards of their success. From the abacus to the calculator, people have always used tools as shortcuts to knowledge. Today's AI is no different.