Crosswalks in Palo Alto and Redwood City were hacked over the weekend. When the crosswalk buttons were pressed, instead of the usual "walk" or "don't walk" messages, pedestrians heard the voices of Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, likely generated by AI. The inserted messages were universally unflattering to the tech billionaires.
The hacked messages included an AI Musk saying, "Hi, I'm Elon. Will you be my friend? Can we be friends? I'll give you a Cybertruck. OK, look, you don't know the level of depravity I would stoop to just for a crumb of approval." The faux Zuckerberg said, "Hi, this is Mark Zuckerberg, but real ones call me the Zuck. You know, it's normal to feel uncomfortable, or even violated, as we forcefully insert AI in every, every facet of your conscious experience, and I just want to assure you, you don't need to worry, because there is absolutely nothing you can do to stop it."
The affected municipalities scrambled to restore the correct messages over the weekend.
City of Palo Alto spokesperson Meghan Horrigan-Taylor said that city employees determined that 12 downtown intersections were impacted and have disabled the voice announcement feature on the crosswalks until repairs can be made. The tampering may have happened on Friday, Horrigan-Taylor said.
Gizmodo reports that the crosswalk buttons are Bluetooth-enabled, which appears to be the likely attack vector for the hack.
Previously:• Funny traffic sign hack
• Occupy Wall Street: 'Don't Worry' (sign in Brighton, UK)
• No Entry sign changed to Ninja Entry sign
