When 99% Accuracy Isn't Good Enough: The Long (Fish)Tail of Real-World Computer Vision
Real-world computer vision rarely fails on the examples you expect, it fails on the long tail of strange cases you didn’t know existed.
At Ark CV, we build computer vision systems for fish monitoring, where models that achieve 99%+ accuracy can suddenly encounter folded salmon, bouncing lamprey, unusual lighting, or individual fish that cross the camera view hundreds of times.
This talk shares lessons from deploying computer vision in these messy real-world environments and why benchmark accuracy alone isn’t enough. We'll explore how human review, targeted dataset development, and continuous feedback loops can turn unexpected failures into increasingly robust production systems.