A 17-year-old has crafted the ultimate tool to cheat at chess after jailbreaking Ray-Ban Meta glasses to show the best moves in over-the-board games.
Chess cheating has been a controversial subject over the years, with many players being accused of using underhanded tactics to get an edge over their opponents.
While cheating in over-the-board matches is much rarer and harder to pull off than in online games, one student from Columbia University, Eddy Xu, has made the perfect cheating tool.
In a post that’s gone viral on X, the student revealed he had modified his Ray-Ban Meta glasses to use AI to show off the best moves without his opponent ever knowing.
AI glasses give cheaters the best chess moves
Eddy’s post quickly picked up speed as he showed several photos of the glasses in action and how they reveal the best moves.
“Built AI chess glasses that allow you to play perfect engine moves without the opponent knowing,” he said.
In a follow-up post, he showcased that the glasses analyze the chessboard by streaming the match on Instagram, mirroring it on the computer and feeding it through the chess engine Stockfish before eventually getting a response in text.
According to Xu, the glasses were made at TeenHacks LI, which is described as “Long Island’s only active 24-hour high school hackathon.”
The chess community was both amazed and concerned about this technology, with Chess.com saying, “Uh oh,” before following up with some praise: “This is INSANELY cool, amazing work.”
Grandmaster Vladimir Kramnik, one of the most vocal opponents of cheating in chess, immediately called for a new anti-cheat system to save the game after seeing the glasses.
“There is one thing left to save chess: developing strong new generation anti-cheating system.
Doing already with my small but fantastic professional team, some help would be welcomed though,” he urged.
Of course, wearing glasses to an over-the-board competition would be a big red flag, but the chess community has never been one to shy away from conspiracy theories when it comes to cheating, such as when Hans Niemann was accused of having an item inside of him to transmit moves to defeat Magnus Carlsen.
Cheating in chess doesn’t just extend to getting a computer to determine the best moves, either. Last year, a Russian player was caught on camera appearing to poison her rival’s pieces before her match at the Dagestan Chess Championship.