A Model for Estimating the Economic Costs of Computer Vision Systems That Use Deep Learning

Abstract Deep learning, the most important subfield of machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) over the last decade, is considered one of the fundamental technologies underpinning the Fourth Industrial Revolution. But despite its record-breaking history, deep learning’s enormous appetite for compute and data means that sometimes it can be too costly to practically use. In this paper, we connect technical insights from deep learning scaling laws and transfer learning with the economics of IT to propose a framework for estimating the cost of deep learning computer vision systems to achieve a desired level of accuracy. Our tool can be of practical use to AI practitioners in industry or academia to guide investment decisions.