In a frightening accident last week, a robot facing a child at a chess match suddenly grabbed the little boy’s finger and broke it during a match at the Moscow Open.
“The robot broke the child’s finger,” Sergey Lazarev, head of the Moscow Chess Federation, told TASS news agency, adding that (the machine) had played many previous games without problems.
A video of the July 19 incident, posted by Baza Telegram channel, showed the boy’s finger being held by the robot’s robotic arm for several seconds, before a woman followed by three men lunged out, and his hand was freed.
Jesus… A robot broke kid‘s finger at Chess Tournament in Moscow @elonmusk @MagnusCarlsen
There is no violence in chess, they said.
Come and play, they said. https://t.co/W7sgnxAFCi pic.twitter.com/OVBGCv2R9H
— ???????????????????????????? ???????????????????????? (@russian_market) July 21, 2022
Sergei Smagin, vice-president of the Russian Chess Federation, told Bazza that the robot appeared to pounce after taking one of the boy’s chess pieces, adding that instead of waiting for the machine to complete its movement, the boy chose a quick response.
And there are certain safety rules that the child appears to have violated when he took this step, says Smagin, as he “didn’t realize he had to wait first,” adding, “This is a very rare case, and it’s the first case I can remember.”
While Lazarev said that “the child made a movement, after which the robot should be given time to respond, but the boy hurried to be caught by the robot.” Considering that in both cases, the makers of the robot will have to “think again”.
The “Baza” channel revealed the name of the boy, named Christopher, and said that he is among the 30 best chess players in the Russian capital in the under-nine category.
And she continued, “People rushed to help and pulled the little player’s finger,” but he was already smashed.
Lazarev told TASS that Christopher, whose finger was placed in a plaster cast, does not appear to be in severe shock from the attack.
However, his parents reportedly contacted the public prosecutor’s office. He said, “We will communicate (with them) … and try to help in any way possible,” according to what was reported by the newspaper “The Guardian”.
Smagin explained that the robot is designed to play several matches at once, and it has already played 3 matches on the day it faced Christopher.
He considered that the accident was undoubtedly due to “something wrong with the program or something,” adding: “This has never happened before. Such accidents happen. I wish the boy good health.”
Perhaps Christopher was lucky, according to the Guardian, as robots became more complex, with models capable of not only movement, but also actively interacting with humans.
According to a 2015 study, one person is killed each year by an industrial robot in the United States alone.
Robert Williams, widely regarded as the first victim of intelligent machines, was crushed to death by the arm of a one-ton robot in 1979 at a Ford production line in Michigan.
And in 2015, a 22-year-old contractor at a German Volkswagen plant was killed by a robot, who crushed it over a sheet of metal.
Robots used in medical surgery were also blamed for 144 deaths between 2008 and 2013.
In 2018, Elaine Herzberg was killed by a self-driving Uber that hit the 49-year-old at 40 mph while crossing the road in Tempe, Arizona.