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…