A former Baltimore-area high school athletic director was detained on Thursday night and charged with using synthetic intelligence to fabricate racist and antisemitic remarks made by the school’s director.
The situation was part of a growing body of AI-generated imitation incidents, which experts say is a new worry in a growing, rarely restricted field of technology. This was a unique example of making up racist remarks to harm a figure’s reputation.
Baltimore County authorities charged Dazhon Darien, originally of Pikesville High School, with disrupting class activities. According to the Baltimore Banner, a local nonprofit office, he claimed to have accessed OpenAI program, which allowed him to fake a recording attributed to Principal Eric Eiswert using the school’s system.
In the recording, a voice sounding like Eiswert says, “If I have to acquire one more issue from one more Jew in this area, I’m going to meet the other side.” Additionally, the words made disparaging remarks about Black individuals. Pikesville is in the center of greater Baltimore’s Jewish group.
In January, the recording was shared virtually by at least three district teachers, including one who claimed to have told police she had forwarded it to a student because she knew it would be shared immediately online. The voice was sent to different sources using an internet address associated with Darien.
Some in the neighborhood responded with a nod to Eiswert’s comments, which are light and make reference to a history of conflict between minority and minority communities. Deray Mckesson, a prominent racial-justice advocate from the Baltimore area who claimed to have had Eiswert as a high school teacher, wrote on the social networking X in January, “I am in no manner surprised by his remarks in this recording.” He called for Eiswert to “be fired quickly” and for his training certificate to “be completely revoked”.
Superintendent Myriam Rogers said the remarks were “highly insulting and inappropriate comments about African American individuals, Pikesville High School workers, and Pikesville’s Israeli society”.
But Eiswert denied making the feedback, and queries were immediately raised about the show’s integrity. Both the school district and the local government quickly launched studies. Eiswert hasn’t been a teacher since their beginning, though the district would not say if he was fired from his position.
Artificial experts claimed in March that the audio’s flat quality and lack of consistent breathing sounds were most likely fakes and that AI experts had warned local media in March.
“From the beginning of this event, the recording seemed strange and suspicious,” Howard Libit, senior director of the Baltimore Jewish Council, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency Thursday. According to Libit, this is why the firm halted any original comments.
“I appreciate the authorities and the school system taking the time to look into the details and appear to understand what really happened,” Libit continued. How artificial intelligence can be used in such a way to harm a college community and a person is frightening. Without points like this, there are enough instances of racism and bigotry in our communities.
The police claim that Eiswert had a presumption that Darien made the false recording as retribution after his contract was terminated, according to the charging document.
