Predictive texts: a bot that dreams up children's stories

"Once upon a time, I dreamed of being a children's author," says Selma Storey, "but inspiration is like fairy dust. I've tried everything, even random word generators, but I can't conjure a children's title from'leverage' and'asbestos'. It's debatable whether machines can be truly creative. Artificial neural nets are thinking machines modelled on the connections in our own brains. They can spot patterns within data, allowing them to predict earthquakes, steer self-driving cars and beat everyone at the board game Go.