Is It time to try nano drone referees?
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To some extent, Nano drone referees make enormous sense for college basketball. They can fly over and around the action in programmed paths determined by player and ball movements. There could be a dozen of them, or more. Their optical and lidar algorithms could be set to vastly greater precision of depth perception than the human eyes of referees. Further, a computer could in real time sort all views and then select, say, 3 to triangulate a decision on. And then their objective decisions could be appealed to a human review of a separate, secure game camera the checked and judged by a court side tech. This would rid us of on court referee bias and referee bribes. But it would introduce us to a new risk of image and algorithm hacking by Intel/Big Gaming if they are, or when they will, use sports betting to launder black monies, as is reputedly already done in other countries (e.g., Italy) . It’s part of surveillance age think, so let’s anticipate it and think it through. Do we want the different Deep States of world intervening analog, or digitally? I’m not yet sure. But I suspect automation of refereeing with drones is inevitable unless we organize to oppose it. There is just too much money to be made by the mil-sec complex both in implementation and downstream laundering to resist the migration. As usual, the only way to deter hacking and laundering and exploits of parallel fiber speed differentials will be paper trails to be cummulatively analysed end of each season, or after a suspect incident.
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Better idea than the broadcast one.
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More eyes mean more fouls called off the ball. Sorry, JB, this idea doesn’t fly, pun fully intended.
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@wissox Well, what if it mean fouls were called correctly. What if it were all drones programmed to referee basketball.
It would create consistency. A charge vs a block would be based on an algorithm and be called the same way every time.
There would be no crowd bias. There would be no team bias. There would be no coach bias.
Simply, every single game could be reffed the exact same way.
No stupid replays under 2 minutes because the drones are tracking the exact parameters and are analyzing the ball at live speed better than even a human could slowing the replay down to a 100th of the speed.
So, potentially it could create consistent reffing which would then allow players and coaches to teach and adjust to what is and what isn’t a foul. Instead of that changing each and every game.
It would also keep a flow to the end of games which human refs can’t even do.
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I think it is a very personal thing for fans concerning support for robotic, mechanical refereeing.
I don’t think it is necessary to use drones. You would build a system with cameras on the ceiling, down on the floor at several angles, and tie it into a computer brain. Add sensors and tracking inside the ball itself, too.
This could be done and mastered.
Even though I scream at refs constantly… I’m not sure how the game would feel without the “human element” from officials.
I think I get extra ticked off at refs when they go on a campaign to change the game, as per direction from the NCAA. Calling the game “closer” often means officials calling games with inconsistency. I think I could handle this better if it was unbiased computer-based officiating.
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The Madden gods have screwed me over too many times to trust a computer to be fair.
I would like a video ref with a direct line to the head ref on the court- with the ability to call fouls in live action.
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By George, you’ve got the concept!!!
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wissox said:
More eyes mean more fouls called off the ball. Sorry, JB, this idea doesn’t fly, pun fully intended.
Of course, you could set the drones to ignore as many fouls as human beings miss, but still achieve similar lack of bias in the fouls that are called.
Or, you could simply let more fouls be called for a few years until the coaches change the way they have their players play, so the number of calls drops sharply over time.
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Interesting suggestion.
