Artificial intelligence has opened new ways to practice Korean fortune-telling, with big data and vibe coding allowing users to access AI-assisted tools or even create their own websites to interpret traditional fortunes.
A fortune-telling website created by popular Korean influencer Roro gained traction Wednesday after she used the large language model Claude to build it.
The website was designed to collect users' birth dates, birth times, sexes and places of birth to calculate the four pillars of destiny, known as "saju" in Korean. The website is currently unavailable due to high traffic.
Users entered their birth information to receive readings on their personalities, talents and weaknesses, as well as their career and financial prospects. The website also allowed users to specify their concerns and receive guidance from two virtual fortune-telling experts.
Saju is a traditional fortune-telling practice that interprets a person's destiny or fate based on their birth year, month, day and hour. Rooted in East Asian cosmology, it draws on concepts such as yin and yang, the five elements and the ten stars.
Traditionally, Koreans have consulted fortune-tellers in person or by phone to seek predictions about their future or insights into their strengths and weaknesses.
Now, more Koreans are turning to models such as Google's Gemini and OpenAI's ChatGPT to interpret their own saju charts.
The trend coincides with the rise of vibe coding, which generates code through natural-language prompts. This enables people with limited programming experience to build their own websites and applications and experiment with different concepts and personalized features.
For example, a visualization that displays saju data through a brain structure has drawn attention this week. Another website helps users interpret their data or generate an image of what their future spouse might look like.
Online saju services are also becoming platforms for social interaction, allowing users to share results and compare fortunes with friends.
A website whose title translates to "Destiny Relationship Map" went viral in August. It maps users by compatibility, calculated solely from their saju data. Curious as to how well they match with others, users have invited friends to sign up, turning a traditional fortune-telling practice into a shared online activity.
mjcha@heraldcorp.com
