内容摘要：The second seed will face another American, Tommy Paul, in the last eight after the 12th seed beat Australia's Alexei Popyrin 6-3 6-3 6-3.

The second seed will face another American, Tommy Paul, in the last eight after the 12th seed beat Australia's Alexei Popyrin 6-3 6-3 6-3.

Conscious robots, he believes, "are our progeny. Down the road, machines like these will be entities that will be on Earth and maybe on other planets when we are no longer around".David Chalmers – Professor of Philosophy and Neural Science at New York University – defined the distinction between real and apparent consciousness at a conference in Tucson, Arizona in 1994. He laid out the "hard problem" of working out how and why any of the complex operations of brains give rise to conscious experience, such as our emotional response when we hear a nightingale sing.

Prof Chalmers says that he is open to the possibility of the hard problem being solved."The ideal outcome would be one where humanity shares in this new intelligence bonanza," he tells the BBC. "Maybe our brains are augmented by AI systems."On the sci-fi implications of that, he wryly observes: "In my profession, there is a fine line between science fiction and philosophy".

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."It could mean someone going from the top 32 and getting into top 16 and making the big time."

Mr Huxtable is also making darts for another Welsh player, Jonny Clayton, from Carmarthenshire, who has won four titles with his darts."Jonny Clayton's game changed overnight and it skyrocketed to the next level," he said.

"He's a great character."Mr Huxtable has also been finessing the darts of former world champion Price, from Caerphilly county, before he battled it out at the O2 on Thursday.