Dazhon Darien was taken into custody by Baltimore County police on Thursday. According to them, he impersonated the principal of Pikesville High School using generative artificial intelligence.
A Baltimore County high educational institution’s athletics instructor and past athletic director have been detained on suspicion of framing the school’s principal with the use of an artificial intelligence voice cloning service.
According to The Baltimore Banner, the Baltimore County police think the alleged recording of Pikesville High School director Eric Eiswert expressing homophobic and racist remarks that went viral on social media in January was a hoax. The audio, which momentarily led to Eiswert’s suspension, has a flat tone, exceptionally pure background noises, and no regular breathing noises or pauses, experts informed The Baltimore Banner and police.
Dazhon Darien, a former sports administrator at the school who was also referenced in the audio clip, was identified by Baltimore County police as the source of the recording. According to reports from WBAL 11 and NBC News, he allegedly used school computers to make use of Microsoft Bing Chat platforms and OpenAI technologies. He was also connected to the distribution of the tape through a recovery phone number and email address.
What artificial intelligence voice technology Darien is said to have used is still being determined.
It’s thought that Mr Darien, the head of athletics at Pikesville High School, created the audio recording as payback against Mr Eiswert, who was at the time looking into possible financial mismanagement at the school, according to a statement released by the police after they detained Darien on Thursday afternoon at the airport. After posting bond, he was freed. He is accused of stalking, retaliating against a witness, stealing (related to the problem with school funding), and interrupting school operations.
Due to the services’ increasing ability to sound more human, the demand for voice cloning methods powered by artificial intelligence has increased over the past year. However, these applications have also gotten users into trouble. During the campaign, the ruling party of Imran Khan, the previous pm of Pakistan who is currently serving a jail sentence, imitated his voice using ElevenLabs. This widely utilized text-to-speech creation tool is available for purchase. A spoof phone call purporting to be from President Joe Biden urging people not to cast their ballots was connected to two businesses in Texas. In February, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) outlawed the use of AI robocalls. Of course, the phoney Drake utilized AI to compose “Heart on My Sleeve.”
In March, OpenAI made the difficult decision to exclude the public from using Voice Engine, its artificial intelligence text-to-voice generation engine. The service, which can clone a person’s voice with just a 15-minute audio sample, is only accessible to a small group of academics since no regulations are surrounding the technique.
