Pietro Miotti, a Google researcher, used a team of 48 AI agents to analyze NASA lidar data in search of unmapped Maya sites. The project was a personal initiative conducted without Google resources.
The AI agents identified a location that appeared to be an undocumented village. Miotti contacted Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH), which confirmed it had no record of a registered site there.
Following the announcement, archaeologists noted that the site had already been documented in an academic journal more than a year earlier. Experts criticized the project for failing to verify findings against existing literature.
Miotti acknowledged that his agents struggled to cross-reference findings with academic papers, as site coordinates are often not publicly available in databases. He updated his blog to credit the original researchers.
Archaeologists emphasized that the primary challenge in the field is a lack of funding for excavation and mapping, rather than a shortage of known sites. Experts also expressed concern that amateur AI-driven claims could overwhelm the scientific community.
