Former Pikesville High School (PHS) athletic director Dazhon Leslie Darien has been detained by Baltimore police after allegedly using AI software to impersonate the principal and make it appear as though he made racist and antisemitic remarks.
Darien, of Baltimore, Maryland, was eventually charged with hate retribution, stalking, robbery, and disrupting college procedures. He was detained at BWI Thurgood Marshall Airport as he attempted to board a trip in the late evening. A background check revealed an empty warrant for his arrest, and surveillance officers stopped him because the weapon he had with him was poorly packed.
“On January 17, 2024, the Baltimore County Police Department became informed of a voice recording being circulated on social media,” said Robert McCullough, Chief of Baltimore County Police, at a streamed press conference today. It was claimed that Mr. Eric Eiswert, the director of the Pikesville High School, is the person who recorded the words on the audio file. We now have convincing proof that the tracking was not true.
The Baltimore County Police Department made that choice after conducting an in-depth investigation that included hiring a forensic scientist hired by the FBI to examine the saving. The study revealed that the recording contained signs of AI-generated content.
McCullough said a second opinion from a forensic scientist at the University of California, Berkeley, even determined the tracking was not true.
“Based off of those results and further research, it’s been determined the tracking was generated through the use of artificial intelligence technology,” he said.
The sound file was shared on social media on January 17 after being sent via email to school educators, according to the arrest permit issued for Darien. Principal Eric Eiswert’s remarks, according to the recording, sounded offensive enough to have a police officer come in to give workers advice on how to protect employees.
It should be noted that comments in the recording addressed [Eiswert’s] alleged annoyances with African American students’ test results and claims that they (the African American students) couldn’t “test their way out of a paper bag,” according to the warrant.
The tracking continued with disparaging remarks about Jewish people and two college professors who “should have never been hired” at the institution. The tracking depicted a dialogue between [Eiswert] and one of PHS’ Assistant Principals.”
Therefore, all piled in first
According to the subpoena, the picture caused Eiswert to be temporarily fired from his place,” a flood of hate-filled messages on social media, many school calls,” and” significantly disrupted school operations.” According to police, it sparked concerns about Eiswert’s protection and threats against him.
Eiswert admitted to not having any conversations during the recording, and that he thinks the audio clip is bogus. And he claimed that Darien was at fault because of his technical expertise in AI and that he had a possible motive: Eiswert claimed that Darien had spoken with him about having regular work performance issues lead to his contract no being renewed next semester.
In more precise terms, those difficulties are described in the permit. Eiswert was criticized in one instance for firing a long-time manager without permission.
Another is that Eiswert was looking into Darien’s use of class resources. In December of 2023, Darien was the subject of a potential theft investigation]Eiswert] initiated,” the warrant says. Therefore, the witness retribution charge.
The various party’s representative stated on the saving that the conversation had not taken place and that Eiswert’s words had not been said in the recording.
The document was apparently sent to Baltimore County Public School names from a Google account, TJFOUST9, according to discussions with Darien and school associates. One of the interviewees claimed that Darien had “exhorted her to test her BCPS email accounts for a strange communication.”
Thereafter, another staff member – who” had a difficult time working under]Eiswert’s] leadership for various reasons” – disclosed that she forwarded the email to a PHS student’s cellphone, who she knew would rapidly spread the message around various social media outlets and throughout the school”. The report had been forwarded to media agencies and the NAACP, according to a subpoena for her former school email account.
Darien denied knowing somebody named “TJ Foust” during his first interview with the police and denied having any part in the recording’s creation and distribution.
Blame it on the grandmother
Consequently, investigators sent subpoenas to Google and AT&T to get accounts ownership details and IP address information. They discovered that Darien’s grandmother’s Los Angeles home had an IP address that the Google handle was created on August 15, 2022. Additionally, they discovered that the TJFOUST9 account’s treatment telephone number was linked to a T-Mobile US account with a Darien-registered account.
Darien’s particular AI tools are not known, specifically. However, the subpoena indicates that Darien’s network access was reviewed by the BCPS Office of Information Technology and that he had used Bing Chat to search for OpenAI tools in many instances.
We are crossing a new, significantly troubling frontier.
At the time of the reported crimes, OpenAI Voice Engine, a resource for producing chemical voices, was not made available to the general public. It was announced on March 29, 2024. However, various businesses like ElevenLabs have been providing words cloning technologies for a while.
During the media event, John Olszewski, Baltimore County Executive, called for more prudence with regard to public internet.
As we continue to embrace emerging technologies and its potential for development and social good, he said,” It is obvious that we are also entering a seriously concerning frontier.”
“We must also be on the lookout for those who might have used it with evil purpose.” That will demand that we be more perceptive and selective with the music and the images we perceive. We will need to be cautious in our wisdom”. ®
