OpenAI's Amazon archaeology contest draws Brazilian backlash

OpenAI's "OpenAI to Z Challenge," a Kaggle hackathon offering $400,000 in prizes to help spot Amazonian archaeological sites with its own models, has drawn a formal statement of concern from the Society of Brazilian Archeology (SAB), according to a Tech Policy Press essay by Lori Regattieri published June 27, 2025.

Participants are asked to use GPT-4.1 and o3/o4-mini to parse satellite imagery, LiDAR-derived elevation maps, historical maps, and digitized ethnographic records. "Prize incentives total $400,000 USD, with a first-place award of $250,000 split between cash and OpenAI API credits," the piece notes. OpenAI employs a CC0 license that "allows contributors to irrevocably waive all rights to their submissions."

Regattieri argues the contest substitutes a Big Tech workflow for Brazilian heritage law. "What is presented as scientific crowdsourcing is in fact a carefully designed mechanism for refining geospatial AI at scale," she writes, framing the whole exercise as "settler-techno-colonialism." "By treating the Amazônia as a machine-learning sandbox, OpenAI stress-tests its models."

The SAB letter flags that IPHAN, Brazil's National Institute of Historical and Artistic Heritage, holds legal jurisdiction over archaeological sites, and that "the OpenAI to Z Challenge circumvents these processes." Regattieri adds that the challenge "was launched with no engagement, no ethical review, and no participation mechanisms" with Indigenous communities, which bypasses Free, Prior, and Informed Consent as codified in ILO Convention 169. Two researchers we track shared the piece after publication.

The essay cites Amazônia Revelada as a counter-model of co-produced research with Indigenous partners, and the CARE Principles from the Global Indigenous Data Alliance as an alternative governance frame.