By Diana Budds

In the premiere of Cyber Subin, a live performance choreographed with the assistance of generative AI, human dancers cross the stage while a virtual character on the screen behind them dances, too. Their movements—the humans’ and the renderings’—are based on “Mae Bot Yai,” the 59 poses in a traditional Thai masked dance called Khon, but are reinterpreted through computational processes. The artists who developed Cyber Subin describe it as “human-AI co-dancing” and they see it as an experimental form of cultural preservation.

“I’ve always been drawn to projects that use AI to connect with and advance cultural heritage, particularly my own Thai roots.” says Pat Pataranutaporn, an interdisciplinary scientist and PhD candidate at the MIT Media Lab. His research focuses on cyborg psychology, the study of how AI influences human cognition and behavior. “Thai traditional dance is one area where there is a lot of potential.”