In a bizarre and politically charged prank, crosswalk audio buttons across Seattle were hacked this week to play an AI-generated voice mimicking Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, urging the public not to tax the wealthy.
Instead of the usual pedestrian prompts like "Wait," the altered buttons greeted walkers with:
"Hello, this is Jeff Bezos. Amazon Prime sponsors this crosswalk with an important message: Please don't tax the rich. Otherwise, all the other billionaires will move to Florida too."
The voice appeared to reference Bezos' own move to Miami and the recent sale of his Seattle estate for $63 million. The audio then shifted to a darkly satirical tone, alluding to a recent high-profile murder case and ending with a quip about how the city might become affordable again if rich people left.
The stunt concluded with a snippet of comedian Bo Burnham's song "Bezos I," adding a layer of cultural commentary to the already surreal experience.
Amazon quickly distanced itself from the hack. "We do not endorse or sponsor these crosswalks," a company spokesperson told local media.
Seattle's Department of Transportation confirmed that several crosswalks had been tampered with and stated that restoring normal audio signals was underway. Officials emphasized the importance of audio signals for visually impaired pedestrians and condemned the hack as a reckless act that endangered public safety.
The incident comes amid a wave of similar hacks in Silicon Valley, where AI-generated voices of Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg have been heard at local intersections, raising broader concerns about the misuse of synthetic media for political satire or misinformation.
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