AI in Southeast Asia: Muse or menace? How artists in the region are grappling with new technologies

SINGAPORE: From his home office in Manila, Mr Patrick Cabral has built a city.  

The metropolis is traditional; the buildings’ beehive structures and nipa palm-thatched roofs are similar to Filipino indigenous bahay kubo houses. But it is also modern. The photo-realistic images show pre-colonial Philippines in a contemporary setting, which Mr Cabral created in 2023 using AI softwares Stable Diffusion and Midjourney.  

For the multi-disciplinary artist, who originally specialised in calligraphy, the latest technologies in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning have provided a new medium for his ideas, and also a platform to reimagine his country’s history.  

“(My) experiments aim to answer the question on how architecture and fashion would have evolved if we weren't colonised,” he told CNA, referring to the Philippines’ era under Spanish rule from 1565 to 1898, and various periods under American colonisation and Japanese occupation from 1898 to 1946.

Over recent years, Southeast Asia’s AI creative potential has not only benefited artists like Mr Cabral but also extended past the walls of galleries and studios. Machine learning tools have been used to improve livelihoods, boost medical progress and explore identity and heritage. 

But even so, concerns in the artistic world over issues such as copyright and human replacement have caused some to question if the AI race is accelerating too fast.

It might seem like a modern phenomenon, but the first use of AI as an artistic tool was in 1973, when British-born artist Harold Cohen debuted his computer programme AARON, able to generate basic black-and-white images.  

By 1979, AARON 's work had featured in an exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art