After so many movies warning us not to create intelligent artificial life because they will have a problem with us — here we go.
The Guardian reports a 7-year-old chess prodigy was injured by a chess-playing robot when he moved his piece too soon. Moscow Chess Federation President Sergey Lazarev said, “The robot broke the child’s finger … This is of course bad.”
Lazarev said the 7-year-old had “made a move, and after that we need to give time for the robot to answer, but the boy hurried and the robot grabbed him.”
A video of the injury, which took place at an exhibition in Moscow, has been shared online, and shows the bot grabbing the kid’s finger and hanging onto it for several seconds. As this happens, several people swoop in to free the kid.
Lazarev said that, while this is a freak accident, the robot isn’t perfect. He stressed what happened was “a coincidence” and that the robot is “absolutely safe.”
He did note that those who built the machine should go back to the drawing board and find out what went wrong because they’re “going to have to think again.”
So, how’s the 7-year-old? The kid, whose first name is Christopher, continued to play the tournament with a broken finger and finished. As for his parents, they’re exploring legal options and are speaking with the public prosecutor’s office.