Chess robot breaks finger of seven-year-old opponent

Cultural pessimists may well feel vindicated by this headline: the rebellion of the machines has come.

Chess robot breaks finger of seven-year-old opponent

Cultural pessimists may well feel vindicated by this headline: the rebellion of the machines has come. She might as well have sprung from the comic TV series Rick and Morty - as a mad grandpa Rick's invention for his grandson Morty that got a little out of control.

But no, this incident really happened - at a chess tournament in Moscow that took place last week. "The robot broke the child's finger," Moscow Chess Federation President Sergei Lazarev told the Russian TASS news agency. His sober comment: "Of course that's bad."

Before we tell you the further details of the bitter event, one more question:

The Moscow Chess Federation reportedly rented the robot for the tournament. No incidents have occurred at previous events. Bad luck for the seven-year-old boy, who had to play against the opponent equipped with artificial intelligence last Tuesday. Exactly how the painful game situation came about has yet to be investigated.

After the chess robot had not quite finished his move, the little boy started to counterattack and wanted to finish his countermove quickly. The robot was either unable to interpret the unusual movement correctly or was programmed to react just as quickly. Eventually, the seven-year-old's quick reaction caused the robotic hand to grab the young Russian's finger and break it.

The video has since been shared multiple times on social media. In it, the robot can be seen taking one of the boy's pawns and then grabbing his finger as he tries to move. Four adults immediately tried to free the seven-year-old. The game had to be interrupted.

Many observers were shocked. "This has never happened before," chess grandmaster Sergey Karjakin told the British daily The Guardian. The operators of the robot now want to take precautions to ensure that something like this doesn't happen again.

The good news: the young talent will probably not suffer any permanent damage. His finger was put in a cast, after which he was even able to continue the tournament. He also finished the game against the robot the next day. This time, however, he didn't use his unusual and painful tactics.

Our chess quiz, on the other hand, is far less dangerous than a game against a chess robot – we promise!