Police accuse ex-athletic director of making high school principal appear racist and antisemitic with AI
Today (April 25), the Baltimore Banner reported that a former athletic director of a high school was arrested by Baltimore County Police after allegedly using new technology to impersonate a principal. Dazhon Darien has been accused of generating Principal Eric Eiswert's voice with artificial intelligence to make racist and antisemitic comments. The Baltimore County state’s attorney has charged Darien with disrupting school activities.
According to investigators, Darien utilized OpenAI tools to do the deed – specifically, a large language model (LLM) designed by the research organization. Through deep learning techniques, the LLM can pull in “vast amounts of data from various sources on the internet, can recognize text inputted by the user, and produce conversational results.”
Darien’s alleged actions sparked widespread controversy and confusion, with many initially believing the offensive remarks came from Principal Eiswert himself. However, Eiswert and his supporters have vehemently denied any involvement, asserting that the comments do not align with his beliefs or character.
An audio clip was first posted on the Instagram account murder_ink_bmore back in January, which triggered investigations by both Baltimore County Public Schools and law enforcement. The voice on the recording referred to "ungrateful Black kids who can't test their way out of a paper bag" and said, "I'm going to join the other side" if "I have to get one more complaint from one more Jew in this community."
Police stated that Darien then circulated the clip to multiple individuals, including teachers and media outlets to make them viral. One of those teachers, Shaena Ravenell, forwarded the audio to a student’s cell phone, the media, and the NAACP. At the time, Baltimore County Public Schools Superintendent Myriam Rogers called the clip "deeply disturbing." “We will not tolerate disparaging remarks about any member of the Team BCPS community,” she added.
Notably, Darien became the subject of a theft investigation launched by Eiswert in December 2023. According to authorities, a $1,916 payment was approved by Darien for the school's junior varsity basketball coach, who happened to be his roommate. Eiswert was said to have found that Darien sidestepped proper protocols by directly submitting the payment to the school's payroll system.
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