Assessment of ChatGPT's potential as an innovative tool in searching for information on wild mammals

In November 2022 OpenAI launched ChatGPT, an Artificial Intelligence model capable of processing, retrieving, and organizing large amounts of data and identifying patterns, thereby generating text on various topics and contexts. In recent months ChatGPT has gained wide attention and adoption in the academic and scientific fields, so its use is being widely evaluated and discussed. In this connection, an evaluation of the performance of ChatGPT was carried out on the accuracy of the answers on general knowledge about wild mammals and the specific knowledge of 30 species. A descriptive study was carried out using three chats where twenty-one questions on general knowledge and three questions on specific knowledge were asked. The questions considered information on the taxonomy, natural history, and conservation status of each species, as well as concepts and indices commonly used in the study of wild mammals. The answers were compared with scientific literature and a value was assigned to later obtain the percentage of precision. The results showed a high precision in the specific knowledge of the species, with an average of 88 % correct answers. Precision varied by species, with species scoring close to 100 % and others scoring as low as 65 %. The taxonomy question had 100 % correct answers, the natural history questions 90 %, and the conservation status question 56 %. In the precision of the general knowledge answers in the study of wild mammals, a moderate precision of 73.54 % was obtained. The study shows that ChatGPT has high precision, so it can be a helpful tool in the search for information in research on wild mammals. On the other hand, concerns are raised about its applicability in the academic field, due to the risk of producing unreliable or biased results and generating inaccurate or misleading content, so it is important to take into account the limitations and risks associated with its use. It is suggested that further research and insight into accuracy be done to explore the full potential of ChatGPT. • The accuracy of ChatGPT is independent of the amount of information on internet. • ChatGPT exhibited high accuracy in answers regarding the taxonomy of the species. • The certainty in the ChatGPT responses to conservation status was very low. • It is recommended to verify ChatGPT responses with specialized sources.