Google researcher's AI agent Maya site claim was already documented

Claim and correction

Google researcher Pietro Miotti said he used a team of 48 AI agents to search NASA lidar data for undocumented Maya sites in Mexico. He said the agents flagged “one major village [that] doesn’t seem to have been registered” in existing records. Miotti told The Verge the work was a personal side project done without any Google compute or resources.

Miotti said he contacted Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH), and that INAH told him it had no record of a registered site at that location. He wrote on his blog: “It took less than 72 hours to go from a random thought while traveling to an official reply from the Mexican government. This is by far the best time ever to be alive.”

Archaeologists pointed out that the site had already been documented in an academic journal more than a year earlier. Ivan Šprajc, a professor of archaeology at the Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts in Ljubljana and a coauthor of the paper documenting the site, told The Verge he was not particularly impressed by the agents’ work.

Expert reaction

Sarah Parcak, an archaeology professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, wrote on Bluesky: “This is why we have peer review.” She added that just because the Mexican government does not have something in its database does not mean it is unknown or unmapped.

Elizabeth Graham, a professor of Mesoamerican archaeology at University College London, told The Verge: “Our ‘problem’ is not discovering new sites.” She said most archaeologists working in the Maya area know about many sites not explored, excavated, or mapped, most found on foot. Graham also critiqued the use of the word “discover,” noting that local communities are often already well aware of sites in their area.

Šprajc said checking with INAH is “not sufficient” because the institution does not have access to all possible information. “The fact that INAH has no official knowledge of a particular cluster of archaeological features does not necessarily mean that it has not been spotted or even explored by archaeologists,” he said.

Why it matters

The case shows how AI tools can produce results without engaging with existing research, leaving experts to verify what has actually been found. Šprajc said he worries amateurs using AI could overwhelm archaeologists with claims of new discoveries, and that publicizing site locations could attract looters. “But as long as these findings do not lead to looting, I don’t see a major problem,” he added.

Sources

• theverge.com: No, AI agents did not discover a previously unknown Maya site | The Verge
• mezha.net: AI agents did not discover a previously unknown Maya site

This article was drafted with AI assistance and checked against the sources above. Company claims are reported as claims. Cover image is AI-generated.