Last weekend, crosswalks in the backyards of Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk were hacked to mimic their portraits. But they are not completely friendly to billionaires, but comments on polarization and distrust of the two leaders who are more influential in today’s society and in Washington, especially in the past.
“It’s normal to feel uncomfortable or even violated when we force AI into every aspect of your conscious experience,” said a crosswalk button hacked sounds like Zuckerberg. “I just want to assure you that you don’t have to worry because you can absolutely do anything to stop it.”
“Hi, this is Elon Musk,” another start. “Welcome to Palo Alto, the hometown of Tesla's engineering. You know the 'money can't buy happiness', I guess it's true. God knows I've tried it, but it can buy Seberac, that disease is disgusting, right?” After a pause, the crosswalk continued, “Fuck me alone”, laughing in the background.
It is easy to recognize that sounds are synthetic, especially since musk is often combined, and the sounds in the video are clearly illustrated. Sadly, by looking at the comments on tiktok, it seems that many people can’t joke and don’t understand that this is the result of hacking, rather than authorizing the use of the CEO’s voice. This is not too interesting when the joke has to be explained.
Officials in Redwood, California, told Palo Alto Online that it is “actively working to investigate and resolve the issue.” Comments on social media suggest that the issues appear to have been resolved on Monday.
The vendor that makes voice-enabled crosswalks is reportedly a company called Polara, which provides pedestrian signal buttons that communicate with crosswalk signals via Bluetooth.
Hacker audio signals put blind people and other obstacles in some danger, but at least it seems that the hackers have placed all the necessary alerts in place – the sounds of Zuckerberg and Musk played a role after reading the signal. But, on the other hand, hearing these sounds may induce someone to walk into oncoming traffic.
Palo Alto has been a recent protest venue against Musk and Tesla’s political ambitions, which makes the electric car brand toxic to its original customer base. While many might think Fremont, California, or Austin, Texas, is home to Tesla, its engineering base is still concentrated in Palo Alto, which founded in 2003.
Americans tend to be negative about the two executives, and a recent Pew Research Center poll found that more than half of our adults have a bad opinion of Musk, while up to 67% don’t like Zuckerberg. At least Musk is welcomed by Republicans, with his 73% consistency with President Trump. Zuckerberg is not loved by either party. Perhaps the public sees through his facade, and knows that Zuckerberg's political tough tilt is nothing more than a stupid attempt to try to use. Meta's antitrust case could force the company to divest Instagram and WhatsApp and start on Monday.
It's unlikely that the billionaire will hear the crosswalk itself is too bad, because walking is of course a Plebeians thing.
