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Catherine Shuttleworth
Apr 28, 2024
A sign of Pikesville High School
Public domain
A gym teacher has been arrested after allegedly attempting to frame the school's principal by using an AI voice cloning service.
A report from The Baltimore Bannersays Baltimore County Police believe audio that was circulated of Pikesville High School principal Eric Eiswert making racist and antisemitic comments was fake.
Experts explained to police that the recording has a "flat tone, usually clean background sounds, and lack of consistent breathing sounds of pauses".
The recording had briefly resulted in Mr Eiswert's suspension and caused him and his family to be harassed for months.
Baltimore County Police is then reported to trace the recording to Dazhon Darien, a former athletic director at the school whose name was also mentioned in the audio clip.
It is alleged he used school computers "to access OpenAI tools and Microsoft Bing Chat services", according to reports from NBC News.
He was also linked to the audio's release via an email address and associated recovery phone number.
On April 25, Darien was arrested at the airport by police.
In a statement, the authorities said: "It's believed Darien, who was an athletic director at Pikesville High School, made the recording to retaliate against Mr Eiswert who at the time was pursuing an investigation into the potential mishandling of school funds."
He has been released after posting bail and faces charges of theft (in regards to the school funds), disturbing the operations of a school, retaliation against a witness and stalking.
The debate around the powers of AI technology led OpenAI in March to withhold its AI text-to-voice generation, Voice Engine, from public use.
For now, it is only available to a limited number of researchers, due to the lack of laws surrounding AI technology.
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