Is AGI by far the biggest news of the year? Some experts think as early as next year, humanity could be facing a wholly new kind of threat: one that we have built ourselves.
A new species prepares to be born
Dance of the destroyers?: This year's Lunar New Year celebrations in China featured an AI-powered folk dance. Glossary
Ice age - A long period of time in which global temperatures are extremely cold.
Neanderthals - An extinct hominid species that lived alongside Homo sapiens until around 40,000 years ago. Their ancestry began in Africa, like ours, but neanderthals migrated to Europe and Asia long before humans. They looked like us but were shorter and stockier with angled cheekbones, prominent brows and wide noses.
Hominids - A group of primates of which only one species exists today — homo sapiens or modern humans. Other human species, or hominids, have now died out.
Artificial General Intelligence - The hypothetical ability of AI to learn or understand any task that a human can.
Homo sapiens - The species to which all modern humans belong. Homo sapiens means "wise man" in Latin.
Autonomous - Having the freedom to control itself or its life.
Superpowers - The US and the Soviet Union, which were replaced the largely European "great powers" such as the UK, France and Germany as the most influential and powerful in the world.
Extinct - A species that no longer has any living members.