Our artifact database started mixing up Roman coins with soda bottle caps

I was inputting finds from a recent excavation into the new digital catalog last week. The system is supposed to auto tag items based on photos, but it went totally wild. It kept labeling ancient Roman coins as modern soda bottle caps from the 1990s. I had to go through each entry manually to fix the mistakes, which took forever. At one point, it flagged a piece of pottery as a car part and sent me an alert. My supervisor thought I was slacking because the reports looked so messed up. We all had a good laugh later, but it wasted a whole day of work. I guess even smart tech has its dumb moments when it comes to old stuff.

2 comments

2 Comments

thomas_wright412h ago

My buddy Mark had something similar happen at his museum job. Their new photo scanner kept reading old 1920s cloche hats as modern lampshades in the archive database. He spent an entire Friday afternoon just clicking "no, that's a hat" over and over. Honestly the software was so confident about it too, which made it funnier.

emery_hall1h ago

Hear you, @thomas_wright41. Our archive tool kept calling bustles "backpacks" with scary confidence.