// THE VERGE — INTELLIGENZA ARTIFICIALE
No, AI agents did not discover a previously unknown Maya site
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Scientists are getting tired of amateurs parachuting into their fields and making ‘discoveries’ with AI.
Scientists are getting tired of amateurs parachuting into their fields and making ‘discoveries’ with AI.
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Armed with a team of AI agents, Google researcher Pietro Miotti claimed earlier this week to have discovered a potentially unmapped Maya site in Mexico. There was just one problem: The site had already been discovered and was published in an academic journal last year. The incident, which sparked criticism among archeologists online, underscores a growing tension in science as amateurs wielding increasingly powerful AI tools parachute into specialist fields, often without the expertise needed to understand what they are looking at.
Local communities are often already well aware of sites in their area.
Miotti said the idea to use AI to search for archeological sites came to him while traveling in Peru, when he began wondering what historic explorers might do with access to modern technology. He settled on lidar, a laser-based mapping technology that can produce detailed three-dimensional images of the environment, and set a team of 48 AI agents to comb through NASA lidar data for signs of undocumented sites. As “Peru isn’t well covered” by public lidar data, Miotti wrote, he shifted his focus to the Maya region.