内容摘要："Obviously it went viral on there, and a lot of people, you know obviously liked it, and commenting on it and all that, saying how fantastic they were."

"Obviously it went viral on there, and a lot of people, you know obviously liked it, and commenting on it and all that, saying how fantastic they were."

It is not just the size of the military build-up that concerns other countries, he told reporters."It's the fact that it is happening without strategic reassurance. It's happening without a clear strategic intent on the part of China… what we want to see is strategic transparency and strategic reassurance be provided by China, and an understanding of why it is needed to have such an extraordinary military build-up."

He cited Australia as an example of such transparency, noting that Canberra makes public its national defence strategy and defence reviews, and makes it "utterly clear" that when they build up their defences it is for Australia and Asia's security."So there is total strategic clarity and assurance that is being provided by Australia to our neighbours, to the region, to the world. That's what we would like to see," he said.Answering a question on a

conducted near Australia and New Zealand's waters in February, Marles said that while it was "disruptive, and we believe that it could have been done in a better way", ultimately "China was acting in accordance with international law"."The guiding light, the bedrock here, needs to be compliance with international law. That's what we keep talking about, is the rules-based order."

Marles was also asked about Hegseth's call for Indo-Pacific partners to increase defence spending as a bulwark against the threat of China.

Marles said "we actually are taking steps down this path… we understand it, we're up for it." US President Donald Trump has called on Australia to increase its spending to 3%, but Canberra has yet to publicly commit to that number.Some experts feel that if consciousness is to emerge, it is most likely to be from larger, more advanced versions of these living tissue systems.

Cortical Labs monitors their electrical activity for any signals that could conceivably be anything like the emergence of consciousness.The firm's chief scientific and operating officer, Dr Brett Kagan is mindful that any emerging uncontrollable intelligence might have priorities that "are not aligned with ours". In which case, he says, half-jokingly, that possible organoid overlords would be easier to defeat because "there is always bleach" to pour over the fragile neurons.

Returning to a more solemn tone, he says the small but significant threat of artificial consciousness is something he'd like the big players in the field to focus on more as part of serious attempts to advance our scientific understanding – but says that "unfortunately, we don't see any earnest efforts in this space".The more immediate problem, though, could be how the illusion of machines being conscious affects us.