Audio-enabled traffic control crosswalk buttons across Silicon Valley were hacked over the weekend to include audio snippets imitating the voices of Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk.
Videos taken by locals in Menlo Park, Palo Alto, and Redwood City in California show the crosswalk buttons were playing AI-generated speech designed to sound like the two billionaires.
“It’s normal to feel uncomfortable or even violated as we forcefully insert AI into every facet of your conscious experience,” said one crosswalk button, which was hacked to sound like Zuckerberg. “I just want to assure you, you don’t need to worry because there’s absolutely nothing you can do to stop it.”
One crosswalk button that was hacked to sound like Musk said: “I guess they say money can’t buy happiness… I guess that’s true. God knows I’ve tried. But it can buy a Cybertruck and that’s pretty sick, right?”
“F—k, I’m so alone,” the Musk voice adds.
It’s not clear why the sidewalk buttons were hacked, or by whom, but signs point to possible hacktivism.
Palo Alto Online, one of the first outlets to report the hack, cited a Redwood City official as saying the city was “actively working to investigate and resolve the issue as quickly as possible.” According to the outlet, the tamperings may have happened on Friday.
Audio-enabled crosswalk buttons are widely used across the United States to allow those with visual impairments or accessibility needs to hear custom audio messages that play for pedestrians to know when it is safe to cross a street.
In a video from 2024, physical penetration specialist and security researcher Deviant Ollam explains how audio-enabled crosswalk buttons can be manipulated often by way of default-set passwords that have not been changed.
Polara, the company that makes the audio-enabled crosswalk buttons, did not respond to a request for comment when contacted by TechCrunch on Monday.
