Last week, a chess-playing robot broke a 7-year-old boy’s finger during a tournament in Moscow, Russia.
“The robot broke the child’s finger,” Sergey Lazarev, president of the Moscow Chess Federation, told TASS.
Officials reported the mechanical opponent waited before moving one of its pieces after the child moved his rook.
“But the boy hurried,” Lazarev said. “The robot grabbed him.”
Russian online news outlet Baza posted video surveillance to its Telegram channel showing spectators panicking when the robot grabbed the boy’s index finger and squeezed it hard.
While lifting his left leg back in what looks like excruciating pain, a man rushes into the frame and attempts to loosen the robot’s grip on the boy’s finger. Eventually, another man freed the child from another second of probably the most brutal chess match of his chess career.
A tournament official stepped in and walked the child out of the frame to receive medical treatment.
Baza reported that the robot’s engineers equipped the machine with artificial intelligence to play three games simultaneously.
Lazarev said the federation rented the robot, which specialists have exhibited in the past “for a long time.” But apparently, the robot operators had overlooked the machine’s error, resulting in worse than a checkmate on the young competitor.
The Washington Post reports that Moscow Chess Federation vice president Sergey Smagin told RIA Novosti that officials had used the AI for approximately 15 years. However, the incident marks the first time anything like that has happened during a tournament.
“It will be necessary to analyze why this happened,” Smagin said. “The robot has a very talented inventor — it may be necessary to install an additional protection system.”
However, Smagin called the incident “a coincidence.”
“It happens,” he said. “It is necessary, apparently, to warn the children additionally. It is extremely strange that this happened, but it happened, it happens.”
Lazarev said the parents plan on contacting a prosecutor’s office while communicating they would try to aid the family “in any way” they can.
However, after all the commotion, the boy reportedly finished the tournament wearing a case while volunteers recorded each move.
Baza said the boy ranks as one of Moscow’s “30 Strongest” chess players.
All acquisition that advanced AI will destroy humanity is false. Not the powerful AI or breaching laws of robotics will destroy humanity, but engineers with both left hands :/
On video – a chess robot breaks a kid's finger at Moscow Chess Open today. pic.twitter.com/bIGIbHztar
— Pavel Osadchuk 👨💻💤 (@xakpc) July 21, 2022