YohWhatAYear: Scrolla.Africa is counting down the heroes and horrors of 2023. At number seven on both of our lists is Artificial Intelligence (AI), which exploded into our lives this year.

Both for the good and the bad, 2023 was the year that the AI revolution really hit home.

That's why we're doing something a bit different today, and including AI as both the hero and the horror.

It could go really wrong - huge increases in AI computing power could wipe out increasing numbers of jobs, fuel inequality, and let ever cleverer bots ruin elections and take over social media.

There is also a new breed of AI, called Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), where machines can actually think like humans. AGI could go really wrong if the machines decide they have no need for humanity anymore.

But hey, there's a good story too.

The new AI programmes and AGI could help us solve problems, and also, for example, bring access to excellent education to the remotest rural communities.

AI has already helped journalists trawl through massive amounts of data, which they could never have read through on their own, to uncover many major stories.

It is creating advances in medicine, helping doctors to identify diseases in patients more accurately which makes it easier to treat them.

AI language tools are helping us get over the language barrier, making it easier to communicate with people around the globe.

From farming to transportation to security, there are AI models making processes more efficient and helping society to function better.

We asked Chat GPT, one of the AI programmes which took the world by storm in 2023, what AI's best impact was in 2023.

It replied: "In 2023, AI's best impact lies in advancing healthcare, combating climate change, personalising education, boosting economic productivity, improving assistive technologies, and enhancing public safety, thereby solving complex problems and significantly improving global quality of life."