FWIW, I don't think "cheating" or "breaking rules" is a good way to convey the notion of what's going on.

it's not like they even understand the notion of the existence of rules

when a pigeon strikes the chess board, it's not cheating, it's just being a pigeon

these programs learn to imitate, interpolate and even extrapolate a little, but it's a mistake to perceive them as following rules

they only seem to be following rules to some extent because the players they're imitating were following rules to some extent