A chess-playing robot fractured a 7-year-old boy’s finger after it latched onto the boy during a match at the Moscow Chess Open competition last week on Tuesday, according to media reports.
“The robot broke the child’s finger — this, of course, is bad,” the president of the Moscow Chess Federation, Sergey Lazarev, reportedly confirmed while telling that the unfortunate incident occurred after the boy made a quick move on the board.
“The child made a move, and after that, it is necessary to give time for the robot’s response, but the boy hurried, the robot grabbed him,” Lazarev said.
Video of the incident, posted by the local media outlet, went viral on social media which shows the robot reaching for and grabbing one of the boy’s chess pieces, and quickly discarding it from the board. The boy attempted to make another move before the robot pulled back its arm and pushed one of his rooks into the same place as the recently removed piece.
The robot’s mechanical claw then descended back toward the board and grabbed the boy’s index finger instead of the chess piece. It held the finger for over 15 seconds before people were able to rescue the boy’s hand from the machine’s grip.
“There are certain safety rules,” Sergei Smagin, the vice president of the Moscow Chess Federation, told the state-run news agency, “The kid probably broke them in time trouble, and didn’t notice when he made his move.”
The boy however continued to compete in the tournament after his finger was put in a cast, President Lazarev told on Thursday.
“The child played the next day, finished the tournament in a cast, and volunteers helped to record the moves,” Lazarev added
“We will coordinate to understand what happened and try to help [the family] in any way we can. And the robot’s operators, apparently, will have to think about strengthening protection so that such a situation does not happen again.”