21st CENTURY HEADLINES: Is This the First AI Hate Hoax?* White Principal Accused of Racism Based on Fake Audio.
A pretty dramatic story out of Baltimore today which reveals what may be the first hate hoax perpetrated with the help of artificial intelligence. The principal of Pikesville High School, Eric Eiswert, was accused in January of making blatantly racist comments behind closed doors after an inflammatory audio file was posted on a popular Instagram account.
In the recording, the person speaking refers to “ungrateful Black kids who can’t test their way out of a paper bag.”
The speaker goes on to question how hard it is to get those students to meet grade-level expectations. He uses names of people who appear to be staff members and says they should not have been hired. The speaker sayshe should get rid of another person “one way or another.”
“And if I have to get one more complaint from one more Jew in this community, I’m going to join the other side,” the voice in the recording stated.
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Siwei Lyu, director of a media forensics lab at the University at Buffalo, said the audio is not particularly sophisticated. Lyu has developed technologies at the State University of New York for spotting audio and images created using artificial intelligence.
This audio is “not a challenging case for the algorithms. I believe someone just made this using an AI voice generator,” Lyu said, adding that he doesn’t believe the person who made it put a lot of effort into the task. Online voice generator tools, like one from Eleven Labs, are available to anyone and advertise their ability to instantly create audio that’s indistinguishable from human speech.
There is, however, clear evidence the audio was manipulated, Lyu said.
Today we got further confirmation of that as police arrested the man they say created that audio in an effort to get back at Eiswert for an earlier investigation.
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[Dazhon “DJ”] Darien (allegedly) stirred up a lot of fear and mistrust in his community. Like Jussie Smollett, he’ll probably get a minor slap on the wrist. I don’t know what he’s facing exactly but I hope if he’s convicted he gets the maximum possible sentence.
This headline earlier today won’t exactly help Darien clear his name: Ex-athletic director accused of framing principal with AI arrested at airport with gun. “Darien, 31, was apprehended as he attempted to board a flight to Houston at BWI Airport, Baltimore County Police Chief Robert McCullough said at a news conference Thursday afternoon. Darien was stopped for having a gun on him and airport officials saw there was a warrant for his arrest. Police said they did not know whether Darien was trying to flee.”
* It certainly won’t be the last, given the rapid spread AI and the increasing ease in faking audio, which, at least for now, is far more easy to manipulate than video. (Though expect plenty of the latter to be faked as well, going forward.)