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'Everybody is vulnerable': Fake US school audio stokes AI alarm

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Agence France-Presse

<p>WASHINGTON — A fabricated audio clip of a US high school principal prompted a torrent of outrage, leaving him battling allegations of racism and anti-Semitism in a case that has sparked new alarm about AI manipulation.</p><p>Police charged a disgruntled staff member at the Maryland school with manufacturing the recording that surfaced in January — purportedly of principal Eric Eiswert ranting against Jews and &quot;ungrateful Black kids&quot; — using artificial intelligence.</p><p>The clip, which left administrators of Pikesville High School fielding a flood of angry calls and threats, underscores the ease with which widely available AI and editing tools can be misused to impersonate celebrities and everyday citizens alike.</p><p>In a year of major elections globally, including in the United States, the episode also demonstrates the perils of realistic deepfakes as the law plays catch-up.</p><p>&quot;You need one image to put a person into a video, you need 30 seconds of audio to clone somebody&#x27;s voice,&quot; Hany Farid, a digital forensics expert at the University of California, Berkeley, told AFP.</p><p>&quot;There&#x27;s almost nothing you can do unless you hide under a rock.</p><p>&quot;The threat vector has gone from the Joe Bidens and the Taylor Swifts of the world to high school principals, 15-year-olds, reporters, lawyers, bosses, grandmothers. Everybody is now vulnerable.&quot;</p><p>After the official probe, the school&#x27;s athletic director, Dazhon Darien, 31, was arrested late last month over the clip.</p><div><span class="fr-video fr-deletable fr-fvc fr-dvb fr-draggable" contenteditable="false" draggable="true"><iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/DjZwAii8tes?&amp;wmode=opaque&amp;rel=0" frameBorder="0" allowfullscreen="" class="fr-draggable"></iframe></span>Charging documents say staffers at Pikesville High School felt unsafe after the audio emerged. Teachers worried the campus was bugged with recording devices while abusive messages lit up Eiswert&#x27;s social media.</div><p>The &quot;world would be a better place if you were on the other side of the dirt,&quot; one X user wrote to Eiswert.</p><p>Eiswert, who did not respond to AFP&#x27;s request for comment, was placed on leave by the school and needed security at his home.</p><div><a href="https://news.abs-cbn.com/news/2024/4/28/house-leaders-call-for-inquiry-into-deepfake-marcos-audio-911">RELATED: House leaders call for inquiry into &#x27;deepfake&#x27; Marcos audio</a></div><div><strong>&#x27;Damage&#x27;</strong></div><p>When the recording hit social media in January, boosted by a popular Instagram account whose posts drew thousands of comments, the crisis thrust the school into the national spotlight.</p><p>The audio was amplified by activist DeRay McKesson, who demanded Eiswert&#x27;s firing to his nearly one million followers on X. When the charges surfaced, he conceded he had been fooled.</p><p>&quot;I continue to be concerned about the damage these actions have caused,&quot; said Billy Burke, executive director of the union representing Eiswert, referring to the recording.</p><p>The manipulation comes as multiple US schools have struggled to contain AI-enabled deepfake pornography, leading to harassment of students amid a lack of federal legislation.</p><p>Scott Shellenberger, the Baltimore County state&#x27;s attorney, said in a press conference the Pikesville incident highlights the need to &quot;bring the law up to date with the technology.&quot;</p><p>His office is prosecuting Darien on four charges, including disturbing school activities.</p><div><a href="https://news.abs-cbn.com/business/2024/4/26/how-to-spot-deepfake-shallowfake-manipulated-videos-1132">READ: How to spot &#x27;deepfake, shallowfake&#x27; manipulated videos<strong></strong></a></div><div><strong>&#x27;A million principals&#x27;</strong></div><p>Investigators tied the audio to the athletic director in part by connecting him to the email address that initially distributed it.</p><p>Police say the alleged smear job came in retaliation for a probe Eiswert opened in December into whether Darien authorized an illegitimate payment to a coach who was also his roommate.</p><p>Darien made searches for AI tools via the school&#x27;s network before the audio came out, and he had been using &quot;large language models,&quot; according to the charging documents.</p><p>A University of Colorado professor who analyzed the audio for police concluded it &quot;contained traces of AI-generated content with human editing after the fact.&quot;</p><p>Investigators also consulted Farid, writing that the California expert found it was &quot;manipulated, and multiple recordings were spliced together using unknown software.&quot;</p><p>AI-generated content — and particularly audio, which experts say is particularly difficult to spot — sparked national alarm in January when a fake robocall posing as Biden urged New Hampshire residents not to vote in the state&#x27;s primary.</p><p>&quot;It impacts everything from entire economies, to democracies, to the high school principal,&quot; Farid said of the technology&#x27;s misuse.</p><p>Eiswert&#x27;s case has been a wake-up call in Pikesville, revealing how disinformation can roil even &quot;a very tight-knit community,&quot; said Parker Bratton, the school&#x27;s golf coach.</p><p>&quot;There&#x27;s one president. There&#x27;s a million principals. People are like: &#x27;What does this mean for me? What are the potential consequences for me when someone just decides they want to end my career?&#x27;&quot;</p><p>&quot;We&#x27;re never going to be able to escape this story.&quot;</p><div><br/></div><div><strong>© Agence France-Presse</strong></div><div><br/></div><div><strong>RELATED VIDEO</strong></div><div><span class="fr-video fr-deletable fr-fvc fr-dvb fr-draggable" contenteditable="false" draggable="true"><iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/RF_TdhGQvEg?&amp;wmode=opaque&amp;rel=0" frameBorder="0" allowfullscreen="" class="fr-draggable"></iframe></span><br/></div><div><br/></div><div><br/></div>

<p>A University of Colorado professor who analyzed the audio for police concluded it "contained traces of AI-generated content with human editing after the fact."</p>

A University of Colorado professor who analyzed the audio for police concluded it "contained traces of AI-generated content with human editing after the fact."