Baltimore County Police Chief Robert McCullough and other local officials speak at a news conference Thursday, April 25, 2024, in Towson, Maryland. Officials discussed the arrest of a high school athletic director accused of using artificial intelligence to impersonate the principal. Audio recordings containing racist and anti-Semitic comments. (Kim Hairston/Baltimore Sun, via AP)
A Maryland high school athletic director has been accused of using artificial intelligence to impersonate the principal in audio recordings containing racist and anti-Semitic comments, authorities announced last month.
Authorities said the incident appeared to be the first of its kind in the country and called for new laws to protect the technology. Experts also warned that while artificial intelligence is becoming increasingly powerful, the ability to detect it could be delayed without more resources.
According to Baltimore County police, Dajon Darien faked the voice of the Pikesville High School principal in response to a conversation the men had about Darien's poor work performance and whether his contract would be renewed. That's what it means.
Police said there are concerns that Darien allegedly paid $1,900 in tuition to his roommate under the false pretense that he was the coach of a women's soccer team.
Darien faked an audio clip that made it sound as if the principal was dissatisfied with black students and their ability to test, police said in the indictment. He claimed the recording also showed the principal and two teachers disrespecting Jews.
The audio clip quickly went viral on social media and had “serious consequences,” including putting the principal on administrative leave, court documents said. Authorities said the recording put the principal and his family in “significant danger” and police officers secured the home.
Police said the recording sparked a wave of hateful messages on social media and a flood of phone calls to the school. Activities were temporarily suspended and some staff felt unsafe.
“Teachers have expressed concern that recording devices may be placed in various locations within the school,” the indictment states.
Darien, 31, faces charges including theft, disrupting school activities, stalking and retaliating against a witness, according to court documents.
Baltimore County Attorney Scott Shellenberger said the case appears to be one of the first in the nation involving artificial intelligence that his office was able to uncover. He said the Maryland General Assembly may need to change state law to keep up with the new technology's sinister potential.
For example, a charge of disrupting school activities “only carries six months in prison,” Shellenberger said.
“But we also need to consider more broadly how this technology could be used and abused to harm others,” prosecutors said.
Baltimore County detectives had asked experts to analyze Darien's recordings based on the indictment against him.
“It contained traces of AI-generated content, with human editing after the fact and background noise added for realism,” the University of Colorado Denver professor told police in court records. Ta.
A second opinion from a University of California, Berkeley professor told police that “multiple recordings were spliced together,” according to records.
Baltimore County detectives discovered that Darien was using large-scale language models such as OpenAI and Bingchat that can “tell users what steps to take to create synthetic media.” says court documents.
Darien's online court records show he posted $5,000 bail on April 25. The record did not list an attorney who might be able to argue on Darien's behalf.
Darien was arrested on April 24, shortly before boarding a plane at Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport, said Baltimore County Police Chief Robert McCullough. McCullough said Darien was stopped for the way he packed a firearm on the plane, and officers learned he had a warrant for his arrest.
McCullough said he did not know why Darien boarded the plane to Houston and did not suggest he was trying to escape.
The Baltimore County school system is recommending Darien be fired, Superintendent Miriam Rogers said Thursday.
Meanwhile, while artificial intelligence is becoming increasingly powerful, it is “very easy to use,” said Shiwei Liu, director of the Media Forensics Laboratory at the University at Buffalo.
“Essentially any test subject's voice can be uploaded to this platform,” Liu told The Associated Press on Thursday. “And when you give it text, you can start creating that person's voice.”
A one- to two-minute recording of someone speaking can be collected from social media and used to recreate that person's voice, Liu said, noting that it's not always perfect.
Liu's research focuses on identifying AI-generated sounds and images. He said that while models are becoming more powerful, detection methods are also trying to catch up.
“It's like a perpetual cat-and-mouse game,” Liu said. “But if we predict the speed of development based on today's situation, detection will be delayed because there are fewer resources and less attention than on the production side.”
Sign up for the Economy Now newsletter for more business news.