内容摘要："No country in the world deserves to be called a hegemonic power other than the US itself, who is also the primary factor undermining the peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific."

"No country in the world deserves to be called a hegemonic power other than the US itself, who is also the primary factor undermining the peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific."

A woman who was sexually assaulted by a friend after a night out has described the devastating impact the attack had on her life.Bryony Piggin, 20, waived her right to anonymity and told the BBC she felt "betrayed" by her former best friend.

She spoke out after Stefan Nikolic, 20, of Coast Road, Bacton, in Norfolk, was found guilty of assault by penetration.On Friday, Recorder Simon Levene sentenced him to two years in prison, suspended for 24 months, and told him he had "misread" the situation.Describing her friendship with Nikolic before the attack, Ms Piggin said: "We were inseparable."

The pair had been on a night out with friends in Norwich when the assault happened in April 2023.The court heard that she had agreed Nikolic could stay at her home in the city, but when she woke up, he was assaulting her.

"It was incomprehensible that my best friend would do something like that to me," she said.

Ms Piggin, who is now unable to work due to her mental health,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.

In just a few years, we may well be living in a world populated by humanoid robots and deepfakes that seem conscious, according to Prof Seth. He worries that we won't be able to resist believing that the AI has feelings and empathy, which could lead to new dangers."It will mean that we trust these things more, share more data with them and be more open to persuasion."