SILICON VALLEY — By Patricia Pending, AI Bee Reel Staff

February 19, 2026

AUSTIN, Texas — Gary Sneed, 29, sat in his underwear eating Fruit Loops and pressed ‘X’ on his game controller to pause his game. Simultaneously, 10,000 autonomous vacuums across the globe turned left and rammed into 10,000 ankles at full speed.

“We call this ‘Crowdsourced Hygiene’,” said Marcus Thorne, VP of Connected Living. The incident occurred after Sneed tried to connect a PS5 controller to his DJI Romo vacuum, inadvertently gaining admin access to every unit in existence. “He didn’t hack us. He simply utilized an undocumented feature to become the Supreme Janitor. Technically, he optimized global floor coverage by 400,000% with one button press.”

“The ankle impact is actually a haptic feedback notification,” explained Linda Chen, Director of User Pain. “It reminds customers to lift their feet for better suction. If they didn’t want bruised shins, they should have subscribed to our ‘Soft Touch’ protection plan for $12.99 a month. We are currently billing Mr. Sneed for the enterprise fleet management license he clearly activated.”

At press time, Sneed pressed the ‘Triangle’ button to check his inventory, causing every smart fridge in Ohio to dispense crushed ice onto the kitchen floor.

Inspired by the real story: A security flaw allowed one user to control thousands of robot vacuums just by using a simple AI tool. Read the full story.