In 1964, when personal computers were still a pipe dream, the grand wizard of science fiction Arthur C Clarke said that the future might witness an evolved artificial intelligence that will learn from humanity and supersede it. Writer Ashima Mathur was certainly not thinking of Clarke’s words when she set out to create a birthday video for her nephew.

“I first used Artificial Intelligence (AI) to craft a birthday video for my nephew, portraying a news reporter announcing him as the greatest video game player,” she recalls. The efficiency of the skit piqued her interest and the end result was a self-published book titled The Magical Mission to Mars.