Lionel Messi posted an Instagram advertisement on Wednesday featuring ChatGPT teaching him a chess opening, which quickly drew criticism for significant factual errors. The ad displays a digital chess board with the king and queen swapped on both sides, deviating from standard setup rules. Additionally, the AI recommends an opening called "GOAT Horns" (1.e4 a6 2.d4 c6), which allows a forced checkmate on move four only because of the incorrect piece placement; on a correctly set up board, this sequence does not result in a quick loss. The post, shared by one of the platform's most-followed accounts with over 517 million followers, garnered approximately 1.9 million likes and 19,600 comments within a day.
OpenAI states that more than 1.2 billion people use ChatGPT weekly. This marketing effort follows the recent rollout of GPT-6 with Intelligent UI two weeks prior and marks a continuation of Messi’s partnership with OpenAI, which began in June. Online communities, particularly on Reddit, noted that this is not the first instance of such errors in OpenAI advertisements, citing a previous spot where Black’s queen was misplaced on e8 instead of d8. While Magnus Carlsen has played similar unconventional openings as jokes, the context here involves a tutorial for a beginner. OpenAI subsequently corrected the piece placement in a separate ad for X, though the original video remains live on Messi’s Instagram.
The incident highlights a disconnect between high-profile AI marketing and basic domain accuracy, potentially undermining user trust in the tool's reliability for educational or strategic tasks. By promoting a chatbot with over a billion weekly users through a flawed demonstration, OpenAI risks reinforcing perceptions of hallucination or lack of rigorous quality control in its advertising materials. The specific error—swapping king and queen positions—is a fundamental rule violation in chess, making it easily detectable by even casual observers and damaging to the brand's credibility among knowledgeable audiences.
From a market structure perspective, this event underscores the challenges of integrating generative AI into mainstream consumer advertising without specialized oversight. The rapid viral spread of the error suggests that social media platforms amplify technical inaccuracies in high-stakes marketing campaigns, forcing companies to react quickly to maintain reputation. Future deployments of AI-driven content in regulated or expert-dependent fields may require stricter validation protocols to prevent similar public relations missteps.
