The image is impressive. During an international chess tournament, which was held from July 13 to 21 in Moscow (Russia), a robot broke the finger of its 7-year-old opponent in the middle of a game, reports Slate. The scene was filmed and published by the channel Telegram Baza. In the images, we first see the child, considered one of the thirty best Moscow chess players under the age of 9, playing in front of a robotic arm.
Suddenly, the machine’s gripper blocks the young player’s finger for several seconds. A woman rushes to free him and then three men come to help him. “This is an extremely rare case, the first I remember,” commented Sergey Smagin, vice-president of the Russian Chess Federation.
He continued to play the next day
According to the organizers of the tournament, the child would not have respected the safety rules and the machine could not therefore have anticipated the fact that he retaliated so quickly. “The child made a gesture and after that we have to give the robot time to respond. But the boy rushed, the robot grabbed him, ”said Sergey Lazarev, president of the federation.
Despite a fracture and a cast, according to the Guardian, the child would not have been traumatized by the incident. He was taken care of and then continued the tournament. “He played the next day and volunteers helped him record his movements,” says Sergey Lazarev. He also received the support of Sergey Karjakin, international chess grandmaster. “This has never happened before. Such accidents happen. I wish the boy a speedy recovery,” he said.
