The opening chapter of the history of the rise of the robot might include a story about a seven-year-old boy who broke his finger playing chess in Moscow.
It seems that the youngster took a move faster than the robot was expecting, which may have led to the accident.
The video shows the boy's finger being pinched by the robotic arm. After a few seconds, people at the table rush to the child's aid and he is free from the clutches of the mechanical adversary.
The president of the Moscow Chess Federation said that the robot broke the child's finger. This is not good.
We don't know what kind of robot this is or how it has been programmed. It would seem that it's designed to just move chess pieces around a board, and maybe not have understood that it was actually grabbing a child's finger.
The good news is that the young man in question was able to finish the tournament despite having a cast on his finger, as far as we can tell.
This is probably a case of someone putting their hands where they weren't predicted to go, rather than any aggressive action on the robot's part, but it's clear we can't have a repeat of this incident.
The robot has been exhibited for a long time with specialists. The robot operators will have to think about how to protect themselves in the future.
The need to put safety measures in place increases as machines get stronger. The need for human-robot interface that are easy to understand from both sides is highlighted by the tragic accidents.
There's some concern that we'll get to a stage where we can't control what the machines around us do because of artificial intelligence.
This would seem to be a case of malfunctioning machinery, so we can rest easy knowing that the robot uprising hasn't begun yet.
It's clear that there's a balance to be struck between keeping us safe while being more precise and less fallible than we can be, and making sure we don't end up in harms way.
All Rights Reserved © 2024
