Unemployed Graduate Builds Viral Virtual Buddhist Temple Using OpenAI AI
A 26-year-old South Korean created Sansa, a virtual Buddhist temple built in 30 minutes using OpenAI tools, attracting one million visitors seeking digital peace.
A 26-year-old unemployed South Korean literature graduate has created a viral sensation named Sansa, a virtual Buddhist temple built in just 30 minutes using OpenAI's Codex. Within a week, the platform attracted approximately one million visitors across Asia seeking a moment of digital tranquility.
Park Jin-won developed the website on October 26 after feeling exhausted from job hunting and wishing to visit a temple without leaving his home. Utilizing natural language prompts with the AI coding tool, he generated the initial version of Sansa, where visitors control small monk avatars and engage in quiet activities such as bowing before a Buddha statue, spinning prayer beads, or listening to hymns.
The website rapidly scaled from an initial 20 virtual cushions to dozens of prayer halls accommodating thousands of users, occasionally creating digital queues during peak hours. The phenomenon highlights the rise of "vibe coding," enabling non-programmers to build functional digital products through conversational artificial intelligence.
