Using AI text searches for difficult initial IDs?

I’ve been trying Perplexity.ai to get ID tips and comparisons recently. Perplexity works better for this use than other options like ChatGPT or Claude.ai because Perplexity usually links to its sources. Normal search engines are getting worse and Perplexity is much more efficient at sorting through the results than I am, and it makes handy lists and tables and includes photo references on its own as well. Obviously it’s going to work best for taxa for which there are a lot of identification resources available; I’ve been doing it for difficult but common trees and plants that I haven’t gotten around to learning yet.

Of course you’ll want to double check the sources and compare notes with people with more experience (just like if you were doing it on your own with a search engine), but so far it’s worked pretty well for me.

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