Assuming a CIImage is backed by a pixel buffer just because it was created from one may not be prudent

[himanshunaidu]

It seems that we cannot make some certain assumptions about CIImage objects.
CIImage does not guarantee being backed by any object, regardless of what it was created from.

Need to study more on CIImage, Core Image in general, and the interaction of this framework with other Graphics-based frameworks like Core Graphics, Core Video, etc.

[himanshunaidu]

We make this assumption because in the classes that serve as the source for the CIImage objects, we forcefully back them with CVPixelBuffer.
For real-time processing, it may be prudent to do so, because we are trying to avoid the possibility of the CIImage buffer going out of sync before it is read by the model. Doing this at the source means that the possibility is massively reduced.