A Russian bot recently broke a child’s finger during a chess game when it reacted to his quick responses.

Software Glitch Could Be the Culprit in AI Robot’s Assault on Boy’s Finger

At the risk of sounding political, what is the deal with Russia lately? First, the invasion of Ukraine led to sanctions by Europe and the U.S. Then Russia used gas as a weapon against the said sanctions and cut off some deliveries to a few Nato nations.

Then came the Britney Griner incident concerning CBD oil in her suitcases while entering Russia. Griner is a player with the Phoenix Mercury and has been held in Russia since February. And this is after she played basketball in Russia for several years without incident.

Here is the next issue that has come up between Russia and the rest of the world.

Last week, according to Russian media outlets, a chess-playing robot, apparently unsettled by the quick responses of a seven-year-old boy, unceremoniously grabbed and broke his finger during a match at the Moscow Open.

“The robot broke the child’s finger,” Sergey Lazarev, president of the Moscow Chess Federation, told the TASS news agency after the incident, adding that the machine had played many previous exhibitions without any similar issue. “This is of course bad.”

Of course, comrade.

Video of the July incident published by the Baza Telegram channel shows the boy’s finger being pinched by the robotic arm for several seconds before a woman followed by three men rush in, free him and usher him away.

Sergey Smagin, vice-president of the Russian Chess Federation, told Baza the robot appeared to pounce after it took one of the boy’s pieces. Rather than waiting for the machine to complete its move, the boy opted for a quick riposte, he said.

“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,” Smagin said. “This is an extremely rare case, the first I can recall,” he added.

Lazarev told Tass that Christopher, whose finger was put in a plaster cast, did not seem overly traumatized by the attack. “The child played the very next day, finished the tournament, and volunteers helped to record the moves,” he said.

A Russian grandmaster, Sergey Karjakin, said the incident was no doubt due to “some kind of software error or something”, adding: “This has never happened before. There are such accidents. I wish the boy good health.”

read more at theguardian.com