Crosswalks in a few Californian cities have been hacked with AI voices of Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg.
These talking crosswalk buttons are usually there to help visually impaired pedestrians by announcing when it’s safe to walk. But, instead of the usual 'wait' command, pedestrians have been greeted by eerily realistic voices of the Tesla CEO and Meta CEO after pressing the crosswalk button.
Safe to say, people are finding it hilarious and have been sharing the recordings over social media.
In one viral TikTok, a woman presses the button and is met with the world's richest man sweet-talking her. "Can we be friends? Will you be my friend?" the AI-generated Musk voice asks. "I’ll give you a Cybertruck, I promise."
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In another, the tech billionaire describes President Trump: "Once you get to know him, he’s actually pretty sweet and tender and loving' before an AI-generated Trump voice says: "Sweetie, come back to bed."
Take a listen below:
A city spokesperson in Palo Alto 'determined that 12 downtown intersections' had been hit by the prank on Friday (11 April). Officials have temporarily disabled the crosswalk voice feature while they figure out what went wrong. Thankfully, the crosswalk signals still function properly for pedestrian safety, the spokesperson said.
Whoever’s behind the prank went all out with some creative scripts. One clip went as follows: "Hi, this is Elon Musk. Welcome to Palo Alto, the home of Tesla engineering. You know, they say money can’t buy happiness, and yeah, okay, I guess that’s true. God knows I’ve tried. But it can buy a Cybertruck, and that’s pretty sick, right? Right? F***, I’m so alone."
Another one by the Facebook CEO 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 into every, every facet of your conscious experience. And I just want to assure you, you don’t need to worry, because there’s absolutely nothing you can do to stop it. Anyway, see ya."
A deputy city manager in Redwood City also explained that they're investigating the issue, with similar issues occurring in Menlo Park. It seems that no major harm has been done as the prank voices are playing in addition to the normal safety messages rather than playing over them.
In the meantime, viewers on social media have been loving the humorous use of AI.
"I don't even know the steps one would go through to get this done, but I support them 100%," one wrote.
Another commented: "This would of literally made my day lol".