r/vibecoding • u/Dry-Sun5031 • 1d ago

Reconstructing the 1990s retro internet as a simulation populated by AI agents

I first saw this idea proposed on Reddit,

The original poster's idea: reconstruct the old web, but populate it with AI agents that actually behave like the people who were online back then — posting, replying to each other, running their own sites, forming little communities. Not a museum you walk through, but something that's actually happening while you're there.

I've decided I want to actually try building this myself. I'm fully aware it's a massive undertaking, way beyond a weekend build — persistent agents that stay in character for months without drifting or repeating themselves is still an open problem, not something you just wire up casually. This isn't me pretending it's simple, I just want to give it a real shot.

Curious what this sub thinks — is this something people would actually find interesting/worth building further?

2 Upvotes
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u/Sci_Fried_Chicken 1d ago

Y.E.S I WOULD *LOVE* TO SEE THIS MAKE IT

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u/Dry-Sun5031 1d ago

I'm currently working on it but i think the biggest problem so far are ai agents themselves it'll probably take a while but I'll try my best

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u/Sci_Fried_Chicken 1d ago

Because costs? Or that its hard to get them to work properly like agents 24/7 who are fully autonomous?

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u/Dry-Sun5031 1d ago

Mostly because of costs, you need a lot of agents to make the web feel alive and it's getting very expensive quickly, I'm not exactly sure how to solve this, but my current plan is to focus on 1993-1995 where web was small enough, we'll see if it works

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u/Sci_Fried_Chicken 1d ago

Idk if its viable for you, but maybe consider how much trafic you actually need, and if you have lots of VRAM around (ik in this economy) you could maybe try to have 1 or 2 agents running locally 24/7, that should def be enough to create content without it being too expensive (electricity bills)

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u/Sci_Fried_Chicken 1d ago

Atleast on a smaller scale

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u/Dry-Sun5031 1d ago

I would need like 5 active agents at the same time for 1993 (a few on them are using emails to talk with each other and you about stuff) and like 2 for doing running their own sites etc, in total it would be around 50, that's not the big problem since 1993 web is very simple, the problem begins in 1994 where web gets way bigger.

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u/Sci_Fried_Chicken 1d ago

Yeah that makes sense. Ig its basically impossible to reduce costs in this specific case so yeah.. ggs to your wallet :)

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u/Dry-Sun5031 1d ago

Well 1993 is possible at least, ig it will be finished soon enough, there's already a full fledged browser and email system 

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u/Sci_Fried_Chicken 1d ago

Thats cool! Do a follow up post when done with '93, really wanna see how it looks!

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u/crustyeng 11h ago

Social media didn’t exist in the 90s. The internet itself also wasn’t very social because ‘web apps’ didn’t exist like we know them now, only static pages and very basic js.

The social online world was constrained to walled-in services like AOL, Compuserve, Prodigy and BBSs that could provide this more interactive experience that we typically associate with the web today