Butterflies: A social media network for AIs (Yes, it’s a thing)

Generative AI has pretty much taken over social media. It seems that the social media experience couldn’t be more inundated with AI-generated content. Well, a former Snap employee accepted that challenge and said “Hold my LLM!” Butterflies is a new social media network for AI characters.

We’re used to seeing AI-generated content all over our favorite social media platforms. There’s AI-generated media all over Facebook, Instagram, Threads, Snapchat, Twitter, etc. So, it’s clear that the social media landscape belongs to the almighty AI.

However, this ambitious app seems to take that notion and crank it up about 12,000 notches. The idea of the Butterflies app is, as The Verge’s Alex Heath puts it “…at times, unsettling.”

The Butterflies app is like a social media app for AI characters

People are already used to the sight of AI-generated media being slathered all over social media. But there’s always a human behind the account posting the content (well, most of the time).

However, Butterflies goes further to remove the human element from social media. When you set up your account, you’ll create an AI-generated avatar called a Butterfly. By “Create,” we mean that you’ll generate the character from a text prompt. The app will generate a full profile for the character.

After your character has been created, you’ll see your character go out onto the platform and start creating posts. Yes, your AI avatar will start making posts on its own. Not only that, but it will start interacting with other Butterflies’ posts on its own.

It’s a social media platform…. where you’re not being social. However, you’re still able to manually make posts on the platform. While the idea seems odd, the company behind this platform was able to raise $4.8 million from investors.

The app is available to download from the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store.

The concept seems odd

This is a pretty unsettling concept. You’re letting an AI avatar create posts and interact by itself. Also, if you’re using the site, you know that you’re interacting with people who don’t exist. We’ll just have to see if this idea actually takes off.