On Wednesday, crosswalk beg buttons across the city had a lot to say. 

Five beg buttons—three in the University District, one close to South Lake Union, and another in Wedgwood—were hacked to sound a lot like Amazon CEO and wannabe space cowboy, Jeff Bezos. Push the button and instead of a robotic voice saying "wait," an AI Bezos opined about a wealth tax. 

“Hi, I’m Jeff Bezos,” AI Jeff said. “This crosswalk is sponsored by Amazon Prime, with an important message—please, don’t tax the rich, otherwise all the other billionaires will move to Florida, too. Wouldn’t it be terrible if all the rich people left Seattle or got Luigi’d? And then normal people could afford to live here again.” Then, comedian Bo Burnham's "Bezos 1" song played. 

The Bezos Beg Button's anti-wealth tax plead followed Gov. Bob Ferguson's decision to kill a proposal by state Democrats that would tax the wealthiest Washingtonians and the state's top-earning companies. Now, Democrats are proposing a new quiver full of taxes which includes increased capital gains and estate taxes, increased business taxes, more taxes on nicotine products, new sales taxes on services, and hiked up business and occupation surcharges. 

The in comes People for an Affordable Washington, the PAC that's spent over $1.5 million on advertisements, polling, and text messages naysaying a wealth tax, just since February. The folks behind the PAC won't be pleased with any sort of business taxes. And, by folks, of course I mean corporations, since 99% of that $1.5 million came straight from businesses. T-Mobile contributed $300,000. Microsoft contributed $300,000 in cash and an additional $24,000 in in-kind contributions. Alaska Airlines gave $100,000 and so did sweet, sweet Costco, which—despite supporting its workers and its diversity hiring initiatives—doesn't seem to care about our regressive tax system, or patching big, fat budget holes that will impact state programs. 

But, without a wealth tax or a high-earners payroll tax at a state level, it seems like the corporate money that flooded our airwaves with anti-tax ads worked. AI Bezos should be pleased. We'll see just how pleased he'll be as the legislative session comes to a close on April 27.

Except, we can't, because the Seattle Department of Transportation has killed the AI Bezos Beg Button. 

"We have corrected walk signal messages in multiple locations and continue to respond to tampered push buttons as we learn of them," SDOT said in a statement. 

It's unclear how the hackers got into the crosswalk beg button system, though a YouTube video from last year implied that anyone could try to access the crosswalk buttons via a smartphone app. SDOT said it is stepping up it security systems. After all, hacking into crosswalk beg buttons so that instead of useful instructions it's a rich guy pouting about taxes does nothing to help the visually impaired.

Maybe this will be the last we hear of the AI Bezos Beg Button. Unfortunately, it likely won't be the last we hear of the ultra wealthy whining about paying their dues.