Crosswalk buttons in at the very least three California cities seem to have been hacked this weekend to provide them the seemingly AI-generated voices of Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. In movies posted on-line, the obvious voice of Musk begs listeners to be his good friend, or that of Zuckerberg brags about “undermining democracy” and “cooking our grandparents’ brains with AI slop.”
A Palo Alto, California metropolis spokesperson advised Palo Alto On-line that metropolis workers “decided that 12 downtown intersections have been impacted,” and have disabled the crosswalks’ voice options pending repairs. The indicators in any other case work as they need to, they advised the outlet. The hack appeared to have taken place on Friday, the individual stated.
The identical factor is occurring in Redwood Metropolis, the place a deputy metropolis supervisor advised The San Francisco Chronicle that the town is investigating and making an attempt to resolve the difficulty there. Crosswalk buttons in Menlo Park are additionally reportedly affected.
The voice options of those buttons are used to information folks with problem seeing, letting them know when to “wait” and when the stroll signal on the opposite finish of the road has turned on. It’s onerous to inform how a lot, if in any respect, the simulated voices intervene with that, however they appear to be enjoying along with, relatively than as an alternative of the built-in security notices, at the very least in some movies of the phenomenon.
Listed below are some movies with the simulated voice of Musk, together with my transcriptions beneath every:
Hello, that is Elon Musk, and I’d wish to personally welcome you to Palo Alto. You understand, folks maintain saying, ‘most cancers is dangerous,’ however have you ever ever tried being a most cancers? It’s fucking superior.
Hello, that is Elon Musk. Welcome to Palo Alto, the house of Tesla engineering. You understand, they are saying cash can’t purchase happiness, and yeah, okay, I assume that’s true. God is aware of I’ve tried. However it will possibly purchase a Cybertruck, and that’s fairly sick, proper? Proper? Fuck, I’m so alone.
Hello, I’m Elon. Can we be mates? Will you be my good friend? I’ll provide you with a Cybertruck, I promise. Okay, look, you don’t know the extent of depravity I might stoop to only for a crumb of approval.
One had a visitor spot from a soundalike of President Donald Trump, clearly making mild of Musk’s shut affiliation with Trump:
Not Musk: You understand, it’s humorous, I used to suppose he was simply this dumb sack of shit. However when you get to know him, he’s really fairly candy and tender and loving.
Not Trump: Sweetie, come again to mattress.
One video revealed by Palo Alto On-line featured this quote, spoken by a faked Zuckerberg’s voice:
Hey, it’s Zuck right here. I simply need to let you know how very proud I’m of all the things we’ve been constructing collectively. From undermining democracy to cooking our grandparents’ brains with AI slop, to — to creating the world much less secure for trans folks. No one does it higher than us, and, uh, and I feel that’s fairly neat. Zuck out!
In any other case, the opposite simulated Zuckerberg voice messages I discovered in movies on-line all had the identical content material:
Hello, that is Mark Zuckerberg, however actual ones name me ‘the Zuck.’ You understand, it’s regular to really feel uncomfortable and even violated as we forcefully insert AI into each, each aspect of your aware expertise. And I simply need to guarantee you, you don’t want to fret, as a result of there’s completely nothing you are able to do to cease it. Anyway, see ya.
