Filipinos would just really produce humor out of everything. How to make #PinoyPride a fever dream? Say no more!
A frenzied series of AI-generated images created by a user becomes viral on several social media sites as it shows a hilarious and self-deprecating progression of graphics depicting various common Filipino cultures in his prompts.
Titled “OA ni AI,” now on its seventh video, originally posted by University of the Philippines (UP) Diliman School of Economics associate professor JC Punongbayan’s Tiktok account. Its first part, an epic evolution of a Filipino kid, already has 5.1 million views on his account with thousands of likes and comments.
It shows a simple prompt of a smiling Filipino kid, who turns into a quintessential Filipino, into a Mr. Worldwide Filipino, a multiversal Filipino, next is a Filipino God, then lastly a biblically accurate Filipino that transcends space and time. Of course, the Pinoy elements are there: the salakot, barong, floating “to the moon” Sarao jeepneys, carabaos, and figure of Mama Mary, unlimited rice, Pancit Canton galaxies, and shining, shimmering, splendid parol realness. As one user commented, it gave “everything, everywhere, all at once.”
Want more? Another video that went on to attain millions of views is the sarcastic escalation of images displaying the traffic in Metro Manila, which moved from bad to worse, then chaotic worst. Since the image is just “Osmeña highway on a normal day,” the user orders for more which produces a traffic tower reaching the skies, causing a massive traffic typhoon, then getting infinitely worst until it develops a Godzilla-like traffic monster.
With our worsening condition of the transportation system and the prevalent issue of road traffic, many users highlighted that the AI photos captured the usual Filipino struggle of an ordinary commuter going to an apocalyptic and hellish feeling of being stuck in one on a regular day.
Dahil mahirap siyang pasayahin [Because he is difficult to please], there is also a Christmas edition with a digitally made photo of a church bell and Leo Valdez’s “Kampana ng Simbahan” playing in the background, transforming to an immense number of bells with its ultimate conclusion of the whole world becoming one large bell that will ring throughout the entire solar system. Truly, one asteroid or meteor catapulting in space and it is all over for humankind and the Milky Way galaxy. Even the extraterrestrials residing on the nearby planets will be shookt out of their core.
This is based on AI progression videos which are gaining significant traction on the internet today by ChatGPT’s new “make it more” feature from its premium image generation tool, Dall-E. However, one needs to pay a $20 (1,119 php) per month subscription to access the mentioned mechanism. A user is capable of easily asking Dall-E to create an image of something, then just keep commanding it to create more adherent to a certain trait.
One can initially utilize basic adjectives such as cute, big, or cheerful, but one can also consider it as a tool to generate an image “more of something.” As a result of the individual prompting increasingly difficult orders to the technology, it can test its limits as well as the photo it produces.
Other social media users have followed suit with the trend, creating the supreme Filipino fita, Filipina beauty pageant, and finally, some burgis [bourgeoisie] representation with the Filipino conyo conversation.
Although ethical issues with AI art remain a cause of concern, especially for actual human artists as artificial intelligence copies and amasses real art for their digitally spawned works, it is said to be a unique, self-sustaining loop where the peculiarities and capabilities of AI art generation tools are both the medium and the message. This is also considered as among the first meme trends native to the AI community and culture.
At present, society has transcended from simply using technology to create memes to harness a new technology to shape a new community: one with its own inside jokes, norms, and now, memes. This trend is the digital correspondence of a pioneering language forming, with AI at the lexicon’s primary core.
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