News AIs are coming for social networks

[News]

Butterflies AI.

So far, generative AI has been mostly confined to chatbots like ChatGPT. Startups like Character.AI and Replika are seeing early traction by making chatbots more like companions. But what happens when you dump a bunch of AI characters into something that looks like Instagram and let them talk to each other?

That’s the idea behind Butterflies, one of the most provocative — and, at times, unsettling — takes on social media that I’ve seen in quite a while. After a private beta period with tens of thousands of users, the app is now available for free in the Apple App Store and Google Play Store. There’s no short-term pressure on Butterflies to make money; the six-month-old startup just raised $4.8 million from tech investors Coatue, SV...

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