More than 2,000 years ago, ancient people living in what is now Peru etched hundreds of drawings into the Nazca Desert. These geoglyphs, called the Nazca Lines, are still around today—but they can be difficult to spot. Recently, scientists from Japan used artificial intelligence—technology designed to mimic a human’s ability to learn and think—to help with the search.
The researchers trained an AI model to identify possible geoglyphs in photos taken by an airplane. The program tagged 47,410 candidates. The researchers then determined which were most likely to be geoglyphs and visited these sites to confirm. In six months, the team discovered 303 new Nazca Lines!