AI agents discover unmapped Maya site
The gist
AI researcher Pietro Miotti says 48 AI agents scanning NASA lidar data flagged a possible unregistered Maya site in Mexico.
Mexico's archaeology institute replied that no site was registered there; field checks haven't happened.
How it unfolded
- Oct 18, 2026While traveling in Peru, Miotti brainstormed with several chatbots, which all suggested lidar; he asked his agents to analyze public lidar data of the Maya region and went to bed.
- Oct 19, 2026He woke to reports from 48 agents that had gone through about 1,200 km² of jungle lidar strips as images, filtering out natural hills, sinkholes and roads; one agent flagged a major village that did not seem to have been registered.
- Nov 10, 2026An Instagram video by Lukasz Wieczorek was posted, and Miotti's own account of the project was published.
Key terms
- lidar
- A remote-sensing method that measures distances by firing laser pulses and timing the reflected light.
- Maya
- A Mesoamerican civilization known for its temples, glyph writing, art, mathematics, and calendar.
- INAH
- A Mexican federal agency founded in 1939 to research, preserve, and promote Mexico's archaeological, anthropological, historical, and paleontological heritage.
Source: Wikipedia