We live in a current moment where, to get things done, we have to deploy terms in ways that capture the imagination of decision makers and the public in ways that affect change. In a sense, it is a kind of marketing. But it is worth thinking about the ways digital archaeology fits into the frameworks of public archaeology as discussed in Moshenska (2017). In particular, we are thinking of the ways in which the public form their views of archaeology. The work of academic archaeologists is not the primary vector through which the public learns about archaeology.

But we can examine the training data, for it is in the selection of training data that we introduce biases or agendas into the computation. By thinking of the machine in this case as something non-human, our hope is that we remind you to not accept the results or methods of AI in archaeology blindly, as if the machine was not capable of racist or colonialist results.

Public archaeology seeks to promote awareness of what archaeology is, how it is done, and why it matters amongst members of the general audience