In January, a television news crew with CBS Baltimore showed up at the home of a high school principal named Eric Eiswert, looking for an interview.
Once the crew arrived, they didn’t record any newsworthy footage whatsoever. Eric Eiswert wasn’t even home. Nevertheless, CBS went ahead and aired very clear images of the man’s house on their evening broadcast.
They did that for one reason, which is that a mob demanded it. At the time, Eiswert was accused of making anti-black comments, on tape, in front of several administrators. Through a representative, Eiswert had already denied making the comments, but the media didn’t care. It was the kind of story the media loves to report — a white principal at a struggling, mostly black school had supposedly validated all of their paranoia about white supremacy. So without verifying the recording in any way, the media immediately went to his home to harass him. Watch:
Whatever possible justification those reporters thought they had for going to this principal’s home, it was over when they got there and he didn’t answer the door. That’s the moment CBS should have packed up the cameras and gone back to the station. But they didn’t. Instead, they spoke to some unnamed person behind the door and aired that footage instead, so that millions of people could see exactly what the front of this principal’s house looks like. And they did that after heavily implying he said horrible racist things on a recording — even though they admit they haven’t authenticated the recording, and say they can’t even play it on-air because of how unreliable the recording may be. This is what journalistic malpractice looks like.
But CBS wasn’t alone. The local NBC News affiliate had similar coverage. They didn’t play the recording of these alleged racist comments either. But they did speak to several students who said confidently that this principal needed to resign immediately:
The police are called in because they’re worried about violence at the school. Meanwhile, the reporters are visiting this man’s home and broadcasting footage of where he lives. And the news stations are insinuating that this principal said something so horrible that they can’t even air it on television.
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To be fair, they didn’t have to air it because other media outlets were spreading it all over the internet. Philip Lewis, the deputy editor of Huffington Post, posted the audio along with this message implying the principal’s guilt. Here’s what he wrote: “Baltimore County Public Schools is investigating the principal at Pikesville High for alleged derogatory remarks about students and staff. A voice believed to be the principal can be heard ranting about Black students and Jewish families.”
Who exactly “believed” the voice to be the principal? The Huffington Post editor didn’t say. He certainly didn’t investigate the recording himself. But in reply to Philip’s posts, a lot of people called for the principal’s termination anyway. “What’s there to investigate?” said one person.
Here’s the audio of the principal’s alleged racist meltdown, which Philip posted:
Now, I remember hearing this audio when it was originally circulating. And it seemed authentic to me, on a technical level at least. I didn’t think it was digitally altered. It sounds like a person — some person, anyway — saying those things. But it also seemed strangely… off… in a few different ways. It was obviously suspicious for a principal in Baltimore, of all places, to say these kinds of things in front of other people. People with these points of view aren’t getting hired to teach in Baltimore, much less run the schools. And everything he says is over-the-top, even in the context of a supposedly racist rant. He’s attacking black kids and Jewish people in the span of 45 seconds for some reason. It’s like listening to a leftist’s comic book idea of what a bigoted school administrator would sound like. The “I’m going to join the other side” line is so on the nose as to be almost comical.
The local news media in Baltimore, however, didn’t share any of my skepticism. One popular talk show suggested that the tape was almost certainly legitimate, because the voice in the recording mentions specific people at the school by name. That was the reasoning. It can’t possibly be fake because someone put the bare minimum amount of effort into it, to make it seem legitimate. Watch:
Yes, how could anyone at the school possibly have “an axe to grind”? How could any faculty member conceivably want to concoct some race hoax in order to bring down the principal? When have people ever lied about being victims of racism? Somehow that kind of thinking still exists in this country in 2024, after about ten million other race hoaxes have been exposed.
But to the great surprise of virtually every media outlet in Baltimore, the ruse came crashing down yesterday, when we learned that this recording is, indeed, yet another one of these race hoaxes.
The principal never said any of the things on that recording. There was no recording at all.
It was all created by AI. Watch:
Oddly enough, watching that video, it almost looks like the police press conference was AI generated too. The officer’s mouth doesn’t match the sounds. That’s the era we’re now living in. In any event, in this case, the audio was generated by an AI program that’s extremely simple to use. All you would have to do is upload a short audio file containing a voice — it can be just a single sentence — and then you can have the AI say whatever you want, in that person’s voice.
Police have arrested the school’s athletic director, a 31-year-old man named Dazhon Darien, and charged him with creating this AI voice file. Specifically, he’s been hit with a variety of offenses, including stalking, theft, and disruption of school operation.
What would Darien’s motivation be for making up a fake recording like this? It turns out that he was under investigation by the principal for allegedly paying teachers under the table using school funds. There was also other alleged misconduct as well, so Darien’s contract wasn’t being renewed. In response, he decided to generate fake evidence that he was being fired because he’s black. On the tape, the principal supposedly says he needs to get rid of black employees by any means necessary — including D.J., which is Darien’s nickname. Then Darien allegedly shared the audio file with another teacher (a black woman who has since resigned), who in turn then shared it with a student who put it on social media. (As of now, no one has been charged with any wrongdoing except this athletic director).
As a quick aside, notice what Darien allegedly chose to include in the fake audio. There’s an angry complaint in there about black students performing poorly on test scores. It’s interesting this is something the athletic director thought to include in his fake racist screed. This is how broken Baltimore’s schools are now. The only impassioned comments you’ll hear about black students failing their tests are in an AI-generated racist deep fake designed to destroy the life of the school’s white principal. Otherwise, no one seems to care about the academic performance in these schools.
This case was apparently solved by analysts who determined conclusively that the recording was AI. For some reason, the media apparently didn’t speak to any of these analysts in January, when they were visiting the principal at his home. But the Baltimore Banner interviewed several of these experts last month. They determined with 99% certainty that they were dealing with AI, based on some telltale signs.
One of the experts said: “There are some signs of editing, like putting different pieces together. This has the sound features of AI generation. The tone is a little flat.” Additionally, there was a lack of “consistent breathing sounds or pauses” in the recording, as well as “unusually clean background sounds.” The analysts also noted, quote, “sudden and incredibly short stops between bits of dialogue that indicate the absence of sound, which itself indicates some level of file manipulation.”
So this was pretty open- and shut at a technical level. It wasn’t a sophisticated deepfake at all. And even then, it took months until the truth came out and this principal could clear his name. That’s how long it took the FBI, Berkeley, and several other AI experts to vindicate this man.
What this means is that we have officially entered into a new era of race hoaxes. We all knew that this would happen eventually. Now we’ve crossed the Rubicon. Unfortunately, it’s only going to get worse from here. We already know there’s a deep desire and willingness among many people to frame innocent people as racists and bigots. AI will be used relentlessly to that end.
Before long, the technology will advance to the point that “experts” won’t be able to identify AI as easily. The tone of the audio will be less “flat,” and there won’t be any awkward spots in the recording. What happens then? Keep in mind, again, that this fake recording — which does at least sound like a real human being — was made by some dumb race hoaxer working at a public school. What could someone with a bit more expertise and access to better technology do? And what happens when the video deep fakes become as convincing as the audio ones? Then we’ll have real problems. Fake hate crimes will be the least of our worries. Total destabilization of society is what we’re facing.
Imagine AI-generated videos of police officers killing unarmed black suspects. Is there any doubt that kind of video would cause nationwide riots? A few weeks ago, an armed black criminal out on pretrial release actually shot at police officers on camera, and the media still nominated the shooter as their new George Floyd. And that’s just the beginning.
Picture AI-generated politicians committing gaffes, making promises, and even declaring war. What happens when AI Joe Biden announces, say, a ground invasion of Russia at 7:00 p.m., just as the real Joe Biden falls asleep? You can imagine the hysteria — especially when an AI-generated Karine Jean-Pierre heads to the fake podium to confirm it.
It’s obvious that we need some kind of legislation in place to stave off the catastrophe we can all see coming. Unfortunately, judging by the fact it took several months to disprove this AI hoax, it’s clear that most people aren’t ready for that conversation. Millions of people see AI-generated clips that affirm what they already believe, and they don’t have any interest in checking if the clip is real or not.
In this case, the AI clip of that principal supposedly affirmed the fiction that white supremacy is alive and well in Baltimore. It was too good to check, so it went viral immediately. That’s why the AI-generated narratives will keep coming. That’s why the number of victims will continue to rise. And it’s why, to save not only jobs but also lives, we need to rein in this technology while we still can.
