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"...science fiction is sort of like a sociological genome. It's a huge range of possible futures, most of them useless; some vital. You never really know in advance."
- Peter Watts

Robotic Butterfly  
  A tiny, electromechanical flying robot.  

I can't think of another reference to a "robot butterfly".

The robot monarch butterfly drops down and hovers above Susan Calvin. She stands in a long corridor of silvery metal. We cannot see either end of the tunnel. It stretches away in both directions ... a road from nowhere to nowhere. Susan wears a long caftan, like a nightshirt. We will have the feeling she is unable to sleep and is walking to settle her thoughts. The robot butterfly hovers and she looks up at it. Then from the butterfly we HEAR the hollow, faintly tinny VOICES of Bratenahl and Bernice recorded from the preceding scene:

BERNICE’S VOICE FROM BUTTERFLY (FILTER)
I think she wanted to use my judgment of you as a gauge of your trustworthiness. I think you’re about to find out what you want to know.

Technovelgy from I, Robot: The Movie, by Harlan Ellison.
Published by Asimov's Science Fiction in 1987
Additional resources -

A bit more:

The light fills the FRAME and we HEAR two things: the ECHO VOICE of CALVIN saying "Goodbye” over and over, growing ever fainter until it is overcome by the SOUND of the WHIRRING of the robot butterfly as it swoops down into the FRAME and the CAMERA FOLLOWS IT UP into the blazing light of the silver metal corridor...

Compare to the artificial butterfly from Changeling (1980) by Roger Zelazny.

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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from I, Robot: The Movie
  More Ideas and Technology by Harlan Ellison
  Tech news articles related to I, Robot: The Movie
  Tech news articles related to works by Harlan Ellison

Robotic Butterfly-related news articles:
  - ChouChou Butterfly Robot

Articles related to Robotics
Korean Exoskeleton Suit F1 Helps You Put It On
Humanoid Robots Spotted In Homes Performing Household Chores
Bambot Open Source Cheap Delivery Robot
Robot Collective Acts Like A Smart Material

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