A Baltimore high university athletic director was detained and charged with using artificial intelligence to deceive a principal on a voice recording that contained disparaging remarks about students and staff, according to authorities.
According to Baltimore County Police Chief Robert McCullough, Dazhon Darien, a physical education teacher and sports director at Pikesville High School, is accused of using artificial intelligence software to fabricate a voice recording of college director Eric Eiswert. The fabricated recording became popular after it was made available on social media in January, causing a stir and outrage in the Baltimore County Public Schools area.
“We now have convincing proof that the tracking was not true. After conducting an extensive analysis, the Baltimore County Police Department came to that decision,” McCullough said at a news conference on Thursday. “It has been determined that the recording was created using artificial intelligence technology based on those conclusions and further research.”
Darien, 31, was arrested Thursday and faces several charges including fraud, stalking, upheaval of school activities, and retaliation against a witness, authorities said. Following a court appearance on Thursday afternoon, Darien was released on a $5,000 unsecured bond.
Scott Shellenberger, the Baltimore County state’s prosecutor, said Thursday that the situation appears to be one of the first of its kind globally. He remarked that state legislators had to release their laws to incorporate the new technology.
The Baltimore event is the latest in a wave of artificial intelligence, or AI, use in schools across the nation. Most cases involve “deepfakes” or AI-generated chemical media, which are images, videos, and music that online influence an individual’s look, voice, or actions.
Schools have struggled to regulate the technology in the past year because center- and high-school male students use AI to take nude pictures of their peers. While some circumstances have resulted in detention, others have had less serious consequences as a result of varying city laws and state laws.
Deepfakes are part of the 2024 poll: Will the federal government control them?
Police: Fake tracking may have been done in reprisal to university research
After an alleged voice tracking of Eiswert making racist and antisemitic remarks about students and staff was posted on Instagram, the Baltimore County Police Department launched an investigation on January 17. The recording sparked a significant website response and sparked a school district investigation.
In the recording, the message stated that Black individuals were unable to “test their way out of a document bag” and that they were trying to figure out how difficult it was to get these students to meet their grade-level expectations. Additionally, the recording mentioned the titles of team members who “should have never been hired” and made disparaging remarks about Jews.
According to The Baltimore Banner, members of the school area believed Eiswert had made those derogatory remarks. Esswert, according to the news outlet, denied making the opinions and has not worked at the university since the investigation started.
As part of the officers’ research, McCullough said prosecutors worked with criminal researchers from the FBI and the University of California, Berkeley, who determined that the tracking was not true. According to McCullough, “the findings from that analysis indicated the tracking had traces of AI-generated content.”
According to McCullough, authorities believe Darien fabricated the tracking as retaliation against Eiswert, who was looking into possible misuse of college money at the time.
According to McCullough, Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport officials detained Darien on Thursday night. When questioned about the packaging of his declared rifle, Darien was stopped and asked how it was being boarded.
Officials checked Darien’s history, and an empty arrest warrant for him appeared, McCullough added.
Baltimore County Public Schools said in a declaration that the area is taking “appropriate behavior” against Darien’s do, including a proposal for termination.
Rise of deepfakes: ‘Entering a new, deeply concerning frontier’
Deepfakes are often used maliciously or to spread misinformation. According to the Center for Democracy and Technology, artificial media created by AI has already “proven to be harmful forces in schools, as students create deepfakes of their peers in intimate poses to mock and bully each other.” Additionally, there have been instances of students fabricating deepfakes on their teachers.
“It is clear that we are also entering a new, deeply concerning frontier,” Baltimore County Executive Johnny Olszewski said Thursday. We must also be on the lookout for those who have used emerging technology for malicious purposes as we continue to embrace it and its potential for innovation and social good.
Last April, a student in Houston, Texas, was accused of digitally altering photos of a teacher and sharing those explicit images online, FOX 26 Houston reported.
According to an arrest warrant, two middle school boys in Florida were detained in December on suspicion of using an AI app to take nude photos of their classmates, who were 12 and 13 years old. Under a 2022 state law, the boys were charged with third-degree felonies.
And in February, school administrators accused middle school students in Beverly Hills, California, of using AI to create fake nude photos of their classmates, according to NBC News. The superintendent informed NBC News that the images included students’ faces that had been digitally altered onto naked bodies.
