[AK View] The Contact 2026

Virtual spaces created through AI-powered vibe coding
Ultimately, an effort to find "people" beyond technology

Screenshot of the company behind the game "SMASH" (https://company.smash-univ.app/dosim-euljiro/)

"It subtly helps relieve stress." A junior colleague sent me a link via messenger. It was a web game made with vibe coding. In the game, players smash real buildings shown on a 3D map with baseball bats, bombs and other weapons. The high-rises in Euljiro were reduced to rubble in no time. The game recreates more than 60 business districts across the country, tallying players' attack scores for each district. The highest score was in Yeouido, where securities firms are concentrated. Could it be because people there have been battered by falling stock prices? At any rate, that score must represent the sum of the frustrations office workers have built up. They are letting off steam by doing in a virtual city what they cannot do in real life.

As the era of vibe coding takes hold, unusual virtual spaces created by ordinary people are drawing crowds. Vibe coding is a way of creating programs by conversing with artificial intelligence (AI). People can now turn the ideas in their heads into web services without any specialized coding knowledge. MetaMoa, a site that brings together these virtual spaces, has more than 850 registered. They range from places to zone out to spaces recreating travel destinations and sights, as well as places to pray. There are saunas and temples, and even a site where ant avatars gather in front of a giant stock-price display to cheer on Samsung Electronics and SK hynix, hoping their share prices will rise. Whether smashing buildings or praying for stock prices to go up, people are ultimately looking for the same thing: empathy and comfort.

The biblical verse "In the beginning was the Word" comes to mind. We now live in an era when a few words can create a game or even conjure up a virtual world. Yet even in these worlds, people want reassurance that they are not the only ones having a hard time. No matter how far technology advances, what people ultimately hope to reach is someone else's heart beyond the dazzling screen. The link my junior colleague sent may have been more than just a game recommendation; it may have been a way of checking in after a long, tiring day.

Neither too close nor too distant. A senior colleague once told me that this was the way to approach relationships. We are beings who can neither understand one another completely nor ever become one. Perhaps each of us is living along a parallel line. Still, we long to connect with someone, even as we bear that distance. Are we trying, at least in virtual spaces, to bridge a gap we cannot close in real life? Amid images of buildings crumbling and in front of blinking stock-price displays, we confirm one another's presence. The signal we send at such moments is no different from the one in the era of PC communications, depicted in the film "The Contact" 30 years ago: Are you there? I'm here.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.