AIGC and the Protection of Folk Intangible Heritage: A Comparative Study of the Dragon Boat Festival and Las Fallas

In the intertwined process of globalization and digitalization, folk intangible cultural heritage is undergoing a transformation—from the decline of traditional transmission methods to the innovation and reform of dissemination approaches. The recently emerged generative AI (AIGC) offers new pathways for the protection and inheritance of intangible cultural heritage. This paper takes two major festival-based intangible cultural heritages—the Chinese Dragon Boat Festival and the Spanish Fallas Festival—as examples. From a cross-cultural comparative perspective, it applies ecological cultural theory and embeddedness theory to explain the technological applications and institutional adaptations of AIGC in different cultural contexts. Based on empirical evidence, it constructs a three-dimensional analytical framework of “technological application-institutional structure-cultural expression,” examining the similarities and differences between the two countries’ mechanisms in terms of protection entities, technological means, and cultural transmission. It is found that China’s protection mechanism features government leadership and social participation, with AIGC empowering digital archiving, immersive education, and cultural-creative content production. In contrast, the Fallas Festival relies on community participation and artistic associations, with AIGC supporting grassroots autonomy and Fallas-specific creativity. The Dragon Boat Festival is rooted in Confucian cultural contexts, focusing on themes like disease prevention and patriotic narratives. Meanwhile, the Fallas Festival reflects a shared Spanish value of creativity, satire, and collective celebration. In both cases, AIGC is used to engage younger generations and expand public participation, highlighting both differences and overlaps in cross-cultural dissemination. This paper argues that AIGC is guiding folk intangible cultural heritage from a state of “static memory” to one of “intelligent expression.” In the next phase, leveraging shared digital resources, ICH metaverse systems, and algorithmic governance mechanisms can help construct a global, collaborative digital heritage ecosystem, thus enabling the sustainable cultural creation of intangible heritage.