Comment by embedding-shape
8 hours ago
> but I can confidently say [...] you're likely looking at >500ms
That sounds outrageous if true. Very strange to acknowledge you don't actually have any specific knowledge about this thing before doing a grand claim, not just "confidently", but also label it as such.
They've been publishing some stuff around latency (https://waymo.com/search?q=latency) but I'm not finding any concrete numbers, but I'd be very surprised if it was higher than the reaction time for a human, which seems to be around 400-600ms typically.
Human reaction time is very difficult to average meaningfully. It ranges anywhere from a few hundred milliseconds on the low end to multiple seconds. The low end of that range consists of snap reactions by alert drivers, and the high end is common with distracted driving.
400-500ms is a fairly normal baseline for AV systems in my experience.
> Human reaction time is very difficult to average meaningfully
Indeed, my previously stated number was taken from here: https://news.mit.edu/2019/how-fast-humans-react-car-hazards-...
> MIT researchers have found an answer in a new study that shows humans need about 390 to 600 milliseconds to detect and react to road hazards, given only a single glance at the road — with younger drivers detecting hazards nearly twice as fast as older drivers.
But it'll be highly variable not just between individuals but state of mind, attentiveness and a whole lot of other things.
My experience is from another prominent AV company; I do not have Waymo insider knowledge.