内容摘要："In my wildest dreams, it's already gone beyond what I would've hoped for," she said.

"In my wildest dreams, it's already gone beyond what I would've hoped for," she said.

Prof Seth, however, is exploring the idea that true consciousness can only be realised by living systems."A strong case can be made that it isn't computation that is sufficient for consciousness but being alive," he says.

"In brains, unlike computers, it's hard to separate what they do from what they are." Without this separation, he argues, it's difficult to believe that brains "are simply meat-based computers".And if Prof Seth's intuition about life being important is on the right track, the most likely technology will not be made of silicon run on computer code, but will rather consist of tiny collections of nerve cells the size of lentil grains that are currently being grown in labs.Called "mini-brains" in media reports, they are referred to as "cerebral organoids" by the scientific community, which uses them to research how the brain works, and for drug testing.

One Australian firm, Cortical Labs, in Melbourne, has even developed a system of nerve cells in a dish that can play the 1972 sports video game Pong. Although it is a far cry from a conscious system, the so-called "brain in a dish" is spooky as it moves a paddle up and down a screen to bat back a pixelated ball.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."The US is the largest export market for the whole region. Definitely," he tells me. "They are the biggest in volume and the biggest in value."

And, until Donald Trump's re-election, the US market was booming. While French wines and spirits global exports, sales of Burgundy wines to the US rose sharply.

from 2024, to 20.9 million bottles. This was worth €370m ($415m; £312m) in revenues, 26.2% higher than in 2023.Mr Labet says the US accounted for about a quarter of Burgundy's wine exports last year.