InspectVLM: Unified in Theory, Unreliable in Practice

• URL: http://arxiv.org/abs/2508.01921v1
• Date: Sun, 03 Aug 2025 21:09:35 GMT
• Title: InspectVLM: Unified in Theory, Unreliable in Practice
• Authors: Conor Wallace, Isaac Corley, Jonathan Lwowski,
• Abstract summary: Unified vision-language models (VLMs) promise to streamline computer vision pipelines by reframing multiple visual tasks within a single language-driven interface.<n>We critically evaluate the viability of this unified paradigm using InspectVLM, a Florence-2-based VLM trained on InspectMM.
• Score: 0.0
• License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• Abstract: Unified vision-language models (VLMs) promise to streamline computer vision pipelines by reframing multiple visual tasks such as classification, detection, and keypoint localization within a single language-driven interface. This architecture is particularly appealing in industrial inspection, where managing disjoint task-specific models introduces complexity, inefficiency, and maintenance overhead. In this paper, we critically evaluate the viability of this unified paradigm using InspectVLM, a Florence-2-based VLM trained on InspectMM, our new large-scale multimodal, multitask inspection dataset. While InspectVLM performs competitively on image-level classification and structured keypoint tasks, we find that it fails to match traditional ResNet-based models in core inspection metrics. Notably, the model exhibits brittle behavior under low prompt variability, produces degenerate outputs for fine-grained object detection, and frequently defaults to memorized language responses regardless of visual input. Our findings suggest that while language-driven unification offers conceptual elegance, current VLMs lack the visual grounding and robustness necessary for deployment in precision critical industrial inspections.

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