ChatGPT Teaches Messi Chess—On a Board It Set Up Wrong, With an Opening That Loses in Four Moves

In brief

• Lionel Messi’s Instagram ad for ChatGPT shows an AI chess lesson on a board with each side’s king and queen swapped, and drew about 1.9 million likes in a day.
• ChatGPT’s suggested “GOAT Horns” opening (1.e4 a6 2.d4 c6) allows a forced checkmate on move four from the swapped setup, but not on a correct board.
• Redditors say it is not OpenAI’s first ad with a misplaced piece, after an earlier spot reportedly put Black’s queen on e8 instead of d8.

Lionel Messi posted an ad on Instagram on Wednesday in which ChatGPT teaches him chess. The trillion-dollar chatbot flubbed the lesson so hard, Chess-knowing commentators online are losing it.

The digital board on screen in the ad has each side’s king and queen swapped, and OpenAI's chatbot recommends Messi open it up with a move that is almost guaranteed to lose in four turns.

The post, from the second most-followed person on the platform with more than 517 million followers, collected roughly 1.9 million likes and 19,600 comments in about a day.

OpenAI says more than 1.2 billion people use ChatGPT every week, and its latest pitch to them is one of the most famous athletes alive getting a chess lesson from a tutor that cannot set up the board.