Potential and Limitations of ChatGPT 3.5 and 4.0 as a Source of COVID-19 Information: Comprehensive Comparative Analysis of Generative and Authoritative Information.

"Conflicts of Interest: None declared."

"The authors are deeply indebted to the advancements in machine learning and artificial intelligence for bolstering the methodological framework of this study. Specifically, the authors used the ChatGPT 3.5 and 4.0 language models to autonomously generate the questions that served as the cornerstone of our evaluation metrics. The generated text and prompt words from these models can be found in Multimedia Appendices 2 and 5, respectively. Concurrently, we used bidirectional encoder representations from transformers (BERT) algorithms for the quantitative evaluation of text quality. Detailed metrics, including BERT scores, are available in Multimedia Appendix 5. This computational approach underwent rigorous statistical scrutiny, which was instrumental in enhancing both the analytical rigor and methodological precision of our research. The “nonhuman assistance” provided by these advanced algorithms was indispensable in elevating the academic quality of our study. The study received funding from several sources. The National Natural Science Foundation of China (grants 30973440 and 30770950) supported the data collection, analysis, and interpretation. The Ministry of Key Laboratory of Child Development and Disorders provided funding through the Youth Basic Research Project (grant YBRP-2021XX). Additionally, the preparation of the paper was funded by key projects of the Chongqing Natural Science Foundation, specifically grants cstc2020jcyj-msxmX0326 and CSTB2022NSCQ-MSX0819. The funding agency paid for the scholarships of the students involved in the research."