Moscow: A chess-playing robot has been accused of attacking a seven-year-old boy and breaking his finger during a chess match in Moscow.
The incident was captured on video at the Moscow Open on Tuesday. The footage, published by the Baza Telegram channel, shows the boy in severe pain as the robot clamps down on his finger for several seconds.
Spectators can be seen rushing in to stop the machine and free the boy.
“The robot broke the child’s finger,” Sergey Lazarev, president of the Moscow Chess Federation, told Russian state news agency Tass. “This is of course bad.”
While it is possible that the incident was an unfortunate accident, chess officials have other theories.
Sergey Smagin, vice-president of the Russian Chess Federation, claimed that the robot attacked after its opponent failed to wait for it to complete its move.
“There are certain safety rules and the child, apparently, violated them. When he made his move, he did not realise he first had to wait,” Mr Smagin said.
Lazarev claimed that the robot grabbed the boy after he “hurried” the robot, not allowing it “time to answer”.
The machine had been deployed in previous chess tournaments and had no prior issues, according to a report in TASS.
The “unique” machine is able to play multiple matches at a time and had already completed three games of chess by the time it reached the boy.
He added that the boy was in good health, saying he “played the very next day, finished the tournament, and volunteers helped to record the moves”.
Telegraph, London
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