Chess Robot Breaks Seven-Year-Old Child’s Finger

“This is, of course, bad.”

From 2001: A Space Odyssey to Terminator to Ex Machina, movies have told us time and time again that robots are not to be trusted to steward humankind into the future. The same is true when playing chess.

The latest real-world example of this came during a recent chess match in Moscow, when a seven-year-old child had his finger broken by his robot opponent. The mechanical arm controlling the opposition mistook the child’s hand for a piece, and grabbed it as the child reached toward the board. He was eventually pried free by four nearby adults.

In the aftermath of the incident, officials had a frank assessment of what had transpired.

“The robot broke the child’s finger,” said Sergey Lazarev, the Moscow Chess Federation president, per Elsa Maishman of BBC News. “This is of course bad.”

Thankfully, the boy was able to finish the rest of the event while wearing a cast. Hopefully, his robot attacker was handed a forfeit for unsportsmanlike conduct.