Athletic Director Frames Principal as Racist in AI-Generated Audio Clip Hoax
Baltimore County’s state’s attorney said the Pikesville High School hoax may be the first AI-related crime being prosecuted.
The last time we reviewed artificial intelligence (AI) at Legal Insurrection, in the context of racial issues, Professor Jacobson discussed the “discrimination by algorithm” being built into corporate America via chatbots such as Google Gemini.
However, it appears AI has already morphed into a tool of race hate that can be wielded more directly. A high school athletic director in Maryland has been accused of using AI to impersonate a principal on an audio recording that included racist and antisemitic comments.
Dazhon Darien faked the voice of Pikesville High School’s principal in response to conversations the men had about Darien’s poor work performance and whether his contract would be renewed, Baltimore County police said.
Concerns included allegations that Darien paid his roommate $1,900 in school funds under the false pretense of coaching the girls soccer team, police said.
Darien forged an audio clip in which it sounded as though the principal was frustrated with Black students and their test-taking abilities, police wrote in charging documents. They said the recording also purported to capture the principal disparaging Jewish individuals and two teachers.
A.I. USED TO FRAME WHITE PRINCIPAL:
Pikesville High principal Eric Eiswert was CAUGHT on tape having a racist rant.
People called for him to lose his job.
The only problem?
The whole recording was AI-generated.
Dazhon Darien, former athletic director (Pikesville) was… pic.twitter.com/E6bSbH7TQq
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) April 25, 2024
The principal, Eric Eiswert, received an avalanche of hate mail and calls for his termination. He was temporarily removed from his position at Pikesville High School once the deep-fake AI audio clip was spread widely via social media.
Fortunately, the hoax was discovered before he was buried under them.
On the audio clip, a voice that mimicked Principal Eiswert made race-based commentary, including statements that African-American students were unable to “test their way out of a paper bag,” according to charging documents.
There were also comments about Jewish individuals and two teachers who “should never have been hired at the school.” Police said the recording depicted a phony conversation between Eiswert and one of the school’s assistant principals.
The clip’s viral circulation on social media had significant repercussions. Eiswert was temporarily removed from the school, and waves of hate-filled messages circulated on social media, while the school received numerous phone calls.
It is chilling to note that other teachers initially tried to protect Darien when the investigation began after Eiswert maintained his innocence.
Darien was one of three teachers who first received the audio from a mysterious e-mail, the charging document read. One of the other teachers told investigators she forwarded the message to a Pikesville High student “who she knew would rapidly spread the message around various social media outlets,” according to the charging documents.
The unidentified teacher also forwarded the audio to several media outlets and groups including the NAACP, investigators said.
That teacher initially kept information from investigators that indicated that Darien was one of the original recipients of the message, the charging document said.
When Darien was questioned by investigators, he claimed that he did not know who the person was who sent him the audio, according to investigators. However, investigators were able to determine that the email address that sent out the audio was registered to Darien, the charging document said.
Darien is now facing multiple charges, including stalking, theft, disruption of school operations, and retaliation against a witness.
Maryland Transportation Authority Police arrested Darien as he was boarding a plane to Houston from BWI Marshall Airport. Law enforcement officers flagged Darien’s bag for the way he packaged a gun in his checked luggage and discovered he had an active arrest warrant.
Baltimore County Police Chief Robert McCullough said police intended to serve the warrant Thursday. He didn’t know whether Darien was trying to flee or had travel plans.
Darien is also charged with theft, retaliating against a witness and stalking. He was released on a $5,000 bond from the Baltimore County Detention Center. He doesn’t have an attorney listed in online court records and did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Scott Shellenberger, Baltimore County’s state’s attorney, said this is the first time his office has prosecuted a case related to AI, and one of the first his office could find in the country.
AI is a tool, and like any other tool, it can be used for good or evil.
While it is wonderful that investigators caught the hoax in this case, as the technology improves, it may become more difficult to do so. Going forward, any audio or video clip should be viewed with some skepticism….especially if it involves race, climate change, or any other of the “justice” narratives.
Some helpful tips might be useful to review going forward.
What kind of words are they saying? Are they using vocabulary and turns of phrase they usually don’t? An AI can duplicate a person’s voice, yet it can’t duplicate their style. A bad actor still must write the “script” for the deepfake, and the phrasing they use might not sound like the target.
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Comments
Dude should be charged with a hate crime and sued so his grandkids hurt.
How does his crime qualify as a “hate crime”? It wasn’t motivated by hatred of white people, it was motivated by his desire to get rid of the principle who was going after him.
It won’t be too long before the Big Tech platforms have automatic deepfake detection the way they automatically detect copywritten music.
I suspect that the ‘spy v spy’ technological arms race between AI generated fakery and AI assisted detection of fakery is just getting started.
Yes,and we’ve already seen a significant investment in this kind of technology particularly when it comes to AI detection for the written word with apps like turnitin, Originality and GPTZero. There are at least another dozen similar apps. There’s a lot of demand for this kind of service because of the education industry. Kids simply aren’t writing their own papers anymore. So, schools are (Quixotically) trying to stay ahead of this 21st century ‘plagiarism’ by using AI detectors. Its’ not going well for them, thus far.
Let me bring in a well-,worn cliché: I didn’t have to see his picture to know his race.
” frustrated with Black students and their test-taking abilities”
Any teacher would be frustrated.
Once again we see that true racism is so rare that the race baiters have to fake “racist” offenses.
This wasn’t actually a race baiting incident as it is commonly thought of. This was more of a case of a person caught in a crime, illegally using school funds, and coming up with a way to try and get the person fired in a manner that no one would listen to anything he had to say.
It used to be, back in the old days, that you had to spend a lot of money to find a good artist to paint a fake picture of your target in a situation that never happened … then photoshop came along …
I am a bit disappointed in the lack of serious charges against Dazhon (??). He tried to completely ruin Eiswert’s life. That really calls for something a lot of stiffer than … stalking, theft, disruption of school operations, and retaliation against a witness. I mean, this was complete life destruction against Eiswert that Dazhon was attempting.
What other charges can you think of?
That would probably require civil litigation and he is most likely judgment-proof.
“Monroe County DA refuses to stop for police […] 55 mph in a 35 mmh zone”
Instead of pulling over she drove her SUV into her residential garage.
Hypothetical: She’s doped and there’s dope in the vehicle. The cop should’ve blood tested her.
The way she carries herself, there really is subtle doped movement.
By driving the vehicle into the garage proper create or complicate a legal vehicle search? (versus roadside search)
https://twitter.com/unlimited_ls/status/1784002299666264287
It is somewhat a legal loophole to do this as you can claim you feared the police were being impersonated by criminals. That said, once she called and verified it she no longer had that right.
Except she called the chief WHILE being pursued to basically say, “Leave me alone. I’m important.” The body cam footage is amazing.
Considering the number of cops who are now pot-bellied, scruff-bearded slobs with neck tattoos, I, too, would be worried they were impersonators.
But she didn’t claim anything of the sort. She told the cop, explicitly, “I didn’t feel like stopping on Phillips Road at 5:30.” The cuffs should have gone on her right then.
Does nothing to complicate a vehicle search. If she is suspected of a crime, which she was, the police can follow her onto private property, force her to take an alcohol/drug test if suspected of impaired driving and search the vehicle. Where the vehicle is parked has no bearing on the matter. You don’t get a “get out of jail free card” because you touch home base.
Of course, no one is above the law. Where have we heard that recently?
A friggin DA. She should have been thrown to the ground, cuffed and carted away right there. There was no reason to talk to her. Especially after the complete criminal BS that came out of her mouth. Unreal.
Was she arrested or not? I don’t see any news that she was arrested. Pathetic.
“While it is wonderful that investigators caught the hoax in this case, as the technology improves, it may become more difficult to do so.”
They didn’t catch him because the technology wasn’t sufficient to fool everyone. They just caught him because he wasn’t smart enough to email it to himself from an untraceable place.
Some other potential worse fallouts:
-Some people will be able to use this as the new “hacked” as an excuse for bad behavior….kind of a Jussie Smollett defense.
-In zeal to maintain innocence, some people may be willing to sign over rights to privacy in order to have themselves monitored regularly as a defense against weaponized deepfake….think of dashcams as a way to prove you didn’t cause an accident but on a more intrusive and government level.
I can see laws requiring AI productions to have embedded “watermarks” that make them traceable.
Yes, but, laws are for the law-abiding.
Most of the cutting edge generative video platforms that have allowed beta-access to people for testing, will only output video with the kind of watermark that you describe. The problem is – as several tech YouTubers have capably demonstrated – is there are already ample, capable AI tools that can then be used to convincingly remove those watermarks. It’s a real problem.
We are at the precipice of real-time generative video/audio AI that is largely, and perhaps completely indistinguishable from authentic video/audio, if we’re not there already. The potential for misuse of such technology is enormous, almost impossible to overstate the danger it presents. We have so many people in Congress who are either laughably tech illiterate and/or bought & paid for by Big Tech (that doesn’t want to see ANY regulation of this technology), I’m afraid it’s going to continue to be the wild west and that will lead to hugely damaging outcomes.
The unidentified teacher also forwarded the audio to several media outlets and groups including the NAACP…….
…is Shaena Ravenell.
She was one of those mentioned in the fake audio. Perfect PE teacher, eh?