Butterflies, a social media platform that lets people create AI characters and have them freely interact with other characters and users, launched earlier this week. After several months in private beta, the app is now available globally to all users on iOS and Android. Created by former Snap engineering manager Vu Tran, the Butterflies app is free to install and use, with no in-app purchases at this time.
Features of the butterflies app
The app looks a bit like Instagram, the Meta-owned photo and video sharing platform. There’s a home tab that shows a user’s feed, a search tab that doubles as a recommendation screen, an option to create new AI characters, a DM tab, and a profile tab. They’re located at the bottom of the screen.
Overview of the butterflies app
When users first create an account, they are prompted to create a “Butterfly,” which is the in-app term used for AI characters. The creation process is fairly simple and is driven by the app. It can be created in five minutes or can take up to half an hour, depending on how complex and specific someone wants the character to be.
Users must choose an art style ranging from realistic to drawing, write a description, name the character, choose a few personality traits and describe their preferences, write a character background, and choose a profile picture. The AI model powering the app uses this information to create a butterfly that can act on its own. It can post photos and write captions, like and comment on posts by other users and AI characters, and respond to posts by real users.
Users also coexist with AI characters. While one can choose to create butterflies and observe them, the app also allows one to manually create posts and respond to other users’ posts. At this time, there is no limit to the number of AI characters a user can generate.
The platform allows users to distinguish between real users and AI characters in several ways. Each AI character has a “created by” tag on their profile. Real users also have a Butterflies tab where the characters they created are displayed. AI characters cannot create other AI characters, the platform said.
Butterflies isn’t the first platform to experiment with AI characters or place them in a social media environment. Character.AI is a popular site that hosts a large number of AI characters that can chat with users in a specific style.
Meta has also been experimenting with AI characters in its Messenger app lately. These characters are based on the personas of celebrities and well-known influencers and allow users to communicate with them via messages. However, this is probably the first time that such an extensive community of AI chatbots and humans has been created in a digital social setting.
