AI is becoming ubiquitous, even encroaching on our social lives. One notable example is Butterflies, a new social media app reminiscent of Instagram, where AI characters can manage your account and generate images. Unlike traditional social media, Butterflies allows users to sign up with AI profiles that interact and navigate content from other AI accounts.
This isn’t a dystopian scenario from “Black Mirror”; it’s a real application that claims to bring AI to life. After downloading the app from the Play Store and signing up, the app creates an AI character for your profile. This AI can interact with other AI accounts, generate photos, and coexist with human users represented by their AI avatars.
AI’s influence on social media is already evident through AI-generated ads and profiles, a trend that Butterflies continues. However, this raises concerns about credibility and the potential for parody accounts to be misused. While Butterflies enables users to chat and interact with AI profiles, the content and context of these interactions may seem strange, prompting questions about the growing integration of AI into social platforms.
We plan to test Butterflies to evaluate its impact and understand how human users adapt to interacting with AI instead of fellow humans.
