The Patriot Post® · The First AI-Generated Hate Hoax?

With the dawn of this new era of Artificial Intelligence, it was inevitable. Someday, someone would use this burgeoning technology for nefarious purposes — in this case, to falsely impersonate and thereby incriminate an innocent individual.

That innocent individual is Eric Eiswert, the principal of Pikesville High School in Baltimore.

Earlier this year, an audio recording of Eiswert speaking with a couple of teachers was supposedly captured behind closed doors. In the recording, Eiswert is heard expressing frustration with “ungrateful black kids who can’t test their way out of a paper bag.” Later in the recording, he says, “And if I have to get one more complaint from one more Jew in this community, I’m going to join the other side.”

That recording was shared with a couple of other teachers, and it then found its way to social media, where it spread throughout the school. Eiswert denied that he had said what was on the recording, but he was subsequently suspended and an investigation was launched.

The racist recording soon brought condemnation from the usual suspects. The local chapter president of the NAACP said she was “disappointed but not surprised.” Other former students of Eiswert also weighed in on social media, claiming that they were not at all surprised by his comments and calling for his immediate termination and for the state to revoke his teaching and administration licenses.

Eiswert also received threats — so much so that the local police placed a detail at his home.

However, it was eventually determined that the recording was bogus; it had been created using AI technology. The individual allegedly responsible for this fake recording was Dazhon Darien, the school’s former athletic director. Darien’s targeting of Eiswert was motivated by retaliation. Last December, Eiswert had Darien investigated for improper payments made to a school coach, who was also his roommate. It was determined that Darien had engaged in theft.

The Associated Press reports: “Authorities said the case appears to be among the first of its kind in the country and called for new laws to guard against the technology. Experts also warned that artificial intelligence is becoming increasingly powerful, while the ability to detect it may lag behind without more resources.”

Given today’s popular woke victimhood culture, where racism is supposedly everywhere, these types of racist hoaxes have sprung up repeatedly. Sadly, if the ostensible victim is a member of a protected group — or two protected groups, as was the case with Jussie Smollett, Bubba Wallace, and any number of other hate hoaxers — the charge is automatically given more credence.

Darien, who is black, took his racism hoax to a new level with AI. Thankfully, the school did its due diligence to find the truth. But this should also serve as a warning. In this new world of AI, not everyone will receive the same due process Eiswert did. Furthermore, as AI technology advances, it will be even more difficult to differentiate fact from fiction.

“It’s kind of like a perpetual cat-and-mouse game,” observed Siwei Lyu, who directs a media forensics lab at the University of Buffalo. “But if I project the speed of development based on today’s situation, detection will lag behind because we have [fewer] resources and are not getting as much attention as the generative side.”

Given the disturbing facts of this case, we can’t say we weren’t warned.