New Delhi, Sept. 18 -- "Dheere dheere hum AI ke chakkar mein itni buri tarah se phas jayenge, humne socha nahin tha (never thought we'd get caught in the web of AI)." Sahbaj Ahmad's now-viral reel, titled "AI gamla", opens with this voice-over to set the context for his ordeal. The 26-year-old vlogger had watched an Instagram tutorial and tried to make a vase from paper cups and cement. "My house is getting renovated, so I had construction material and decided to give it a go," says the driver-for-hire from Chatra district in Jharkhand. Three days later, he had made something that, in his words, looked nothing like the video but resembled the "coronavirus logo".

"My first thought was that I lacked the skill," says Ahmad, who has 87,000 f...