Robots--they're just like us, apparently, in that even they sometimes cheat at chess.
A seven-year-old chess player was injured in a recent match in Russia when a chess-playing robot broke his finger during a game at the Moscow Open.
Officials are blaming not the robot, but the boy for the mishap, claiming he made a sudden sharp physical move to which the robot retaliated.
Video of the incident doesn't show the child making any sudden moves, so what exactly happened remains unclear. See the video below.
The video shows the boy, who is one of the top 30 child chess players in Russia, engaging in a seemingly calm and normal game with the robot, until it suddenly pinned his finger against the board. Adults began rushing in as the boy was seen squirming and trying to free himself.
Speaking about the incident to Russian state media, Sergey Smagin, vice president of the Russian Chess Federation, said:
"There are certain safety rules, and the child, apparently, violated them. When he made his move, he did not realize he first had to wait."
Another official, Moscow Chess Federation president Sergey Lazarev, confirmed to Russian media that the child's finger was broken and that the robot had played many chess games without any issues.
He did concede, however, that "this is of course bad." Unsurprisingly, the child's parents have reportedly contacted the public prosecutor’s office.
On Twitter, most people weren't buying the officials' claims that it was the boy's fault.
And of course there were plenty of jokes about the mishap.
All in all, not a great few days for Russian robots--first, the Russian robot dog indiscriminately firing a submachine gun, and now a chess bot who breaks your bones? We are living on borrowed time!
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