arxivcs.CVcs.CLcs.LG2026-07-24
Small Vision-Language Models Know When They Are Wrong But Cannot Say So: A Two-Model Study of Stated versus Internal Confidence Under Realistic Image Degradation
Vision-language models (VLMs) are increasingly deployed on consumer hardware where input images are degraded by compression, camera shake, and poor lighting. In such settings, a reliable uncertainty signal matters more than raw accuracy, because it determines when a system should…