NBA Commissioner Adam Silver has announced that the league will adopt artificial intelligence (AI) to automate out-of-bounds calls, with the goal of accelerating the game's tempo and minimizing disputes over ball possession. Drawing inspiration from tennis's Hawk-Eye technology, this system will leverage court-side cameras and AI algorithms to deliver instantaneous rulings. This will free up referees to concentrate on physical contact and foul adjudication.

With this new system, such objective decisions will no longer rely on manual judgment, eliminating the need for challenges or appeals. Although the official timeline for the system's rollout has yet to be disclosed, Silver indicated that progress will be made "quite swiftly."

When it comes to assessing physical contact, referees remain indispensable. Nearly every play involves some degree of contact, yet not all contact warrants a foul. Such nuanced judgments cannot be solely entrusted to cameras, as they require the human insight and experience that referees bring to the game.