To AI,
or not to AI.
That is the question.
When to AI and when not to AI
That is also the question.
Innovation is still undefeated.
Tradition versus innovation is not a new fight.
It has played out through history.
The tools we use today were once resisted.
... but that doesn’t mean we discard tradition.
“Ang hindi marunong lumingon sa pinanggalingan ay hindi makakarating sa paroroonan.”
— José Rizal, probably
Yesterday’s heresy is today’s norm.
The web / e-commerce
Dismissed as “brochureware,” a fad. The skeptics became the case studies.
ATM Machines
Supposed to end the teller. Instead, teller jobs rose for two decades and evolved.
Protesting Calculators
Then strongly opposed, now we all use everyday.
— Alan Kay, 1971
Automate production, not origination.
AI as a tool
The machine does the grind, so humans spend time on work only humans can do: judgment, taste, relationships.
AI as substitute for talent
Each corner cut buys a little speed and borrows against the brand, and the debt compounds faster than the saving.
Where we went wrong
Case studies and cautionary tales — AI missteps around the world.
When the world turned to AI — it shipped slop.
Beloved nostalgia, diluted
Rebuilt its beloved Christmas ad with AI, and the world called it “soulless.” It did it again, cheaper, and was panned harder.
Wonderland → Warehouse
AI images sold a wonderland; families walked into a bare warehouse. Police were called. Now in the Museum of Failure.
Hallucinated Author-ity
Ran articles under writers who didn’t exist — AI headshots you could buy online. When questioned, the “authors” vanished.
AI promised paradise. Reality delivered a warehouse.
Stranded at the gate
A couple missed their trip entirely — ChatGPT got the country’s entry rules wrong, and they trusted it.
Source: HuffPost ↗
Inexistent tourist spots
An AI travel site invented “Weldborough Hot Springs.” Dozens drove out; a local pub fielded the confused arrivals.
Source: CNN ↗
The Eiffel Tower… in Beijing
Travel AIs confidently place real landmarks in the wrong cities and route people to places that don’t exist.
Source: Futurism ↗~90% of AI-generated itineraries contain errors.
Source: SEO Travel study, 2025 ↗
Blaming AI for layoffs — and the counterargument.
There was AI-washing (dressing up ordinary work as “AI”); now there is “AI layoffs.” Regulators have already started fining it.
Where we are now
What this shift means for a culture like ours.
Business cultures around the world
The super-app that wins in Jakarta doesn’t transplant to Frankfurt. You can’t replicate an outcome without recreating the conditions that produced it.
Young. Fluent. Fast. World-ready.
We were never just cheap. And cheap is exactly the part AI erases first.
Passenger. And driver.
Once the country’s furniture capital.
Commodity work bled out to automation and cheaper hubs. Design-led makers survived on craft, not price.
$40B · 1.9M jobs · 8% of GDP.
Our biggest edge now stands at the same fork, facing AI and automation. Will this be another furniture-like loss?
How Cebu navigates the AI world
Leveraging characteristics unique to the Philippines as a human capital hub.
Cebu steered with genuine craft
Artists for ASEAN
Insisted on original artistry to welcome ASEAN. An institution refusing the tool, on purpose, for identity.
Interactive tourism maps
Drawn by human hands, coded with technology. Origination human. Production digital. Access: World.
Real Animators, Real Talent
Upskilling entry-level animators with genuine craft and modern tools — plus business workshops.
Human talent—augmented, not replaced
72 hours, done by hand
Welcoming the world for ASEAN, Cebu’s deadline begged for GenAI. Cebuano artists drew it by hand — because Cebu is a UNESCO Creative City of Design.
Genuine, not generated
Tourism data and maps — real places, on-the-ground data, mapped by human hands for Cebu Province. Not hallucinated. Sourced.
Enhanced, not obsolete
When AI gutted low-value animation, Cebu trained its animators up-market — Cebuanimation.
Don’t compete
with AI.
Drive it.
We don’t reject innovation.
We shape it.
Because even with every tool, nothing beats human creativity.
the SolutionsFest Showcase, from Cebu’s own builders. →