In the first case of AI-generated race hoaxes, we have now crossed the Rubicon. A disturbing audio recording circulating in the Baltimore County community is circulating on social media claiming to show a racist and anti-Semitic remark made by a white high school principal. And yet, when a crew from CBS Baltimore went to the principal s home to interview him about the recording, they didn t even bother to check it out.
00:00:30.160We'll talk about all that and more today on the Matt Wall Show.
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00:01:47.620Back 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.
00:02:05.560And once the crew arrived, they didn't record any newsworthy footage whatsoever.
00:02:51.520Now to other news you're following tonight, a disturbing audio recording is circulating in the Baltimore County community tonight.
00:02:57.400The recording is allegedly the principal of Pikesville High School making racist and anti-Semitic comments about students, community members, and staff.
00:03:06.280Pikesville High School's principal, Eric Eiswert, is in hot water over an audio recording making rounds on social media containing racist and anti-Semitic comments.
00:03:16.120He needs to be removed from the school ASAP.
00:03:18.060Davina McCain's son is a student at Pikesville High.
00:03:20.880But to hear him say that about kids, that's horrible.
00:03:24.980W.J.Z. is choosing not to air the recording at this time because we are unable to verify the authenticity of it.
00:03:31.640But in it, a person purported to be the principal can be heard making disparaging comments about the test scores of African-American students.
00:03:39.800The person on the recording then makes an offensive comment about an African-American staff member at the school and members of the Pikesville Jewish community.
00:03:48.100W.J.Z. stopped by Eiswert's home to see if he had a comment about the recording.
00:03:52.260Hi. I'm looking for Principal Eiswert.
00:04:05.200Yeah, but nobody's going to believe his story anyway, so it doesn't really matter.
00:04:08.320Now, whatever possible justification those reporters thought they had for going to the principal's home, it was over when they got there and he didn't answer the door.
00:04:17.580That's the moment the CBS news crew should have packed their cameras up and gone back to the station.
00:04:25.420Instead, they spoke to some unnamed person behind the door and they aired that footage instead so that millions of people could see exactly what the front of this principal's house looks like.
00:04:34.980And they did that after heavily implying that he said horrible racist things on a recording, even though they admit that they haven't authenticated the recording and they say they can't even play it on air because of how unreliable the recording may be.
00:04:46.240So all in all, this is what journalistic malpractice looks like, and we've seen many examples of this kind of thing.
00:04:55.380The local NBC News affiliate had similar coverage.
00:04:58.300They 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.
00:05:09.660Kyrie Stewart joins us live outside of the school.
00:05:11.700And Kyrie, you spoke with students and parents, so what do they have to say about all this?
00:05:14.900Yes, well, this has pretty much the whole community talking.
00:05:18.780You know, since we've been out here, we've had parents and students just come up to us and tell us this, how shocking and disturbed they are by all of this.
00:05:25.420In fact, I want you all to take a look at this video out of an abundance of caution.
00:05:29.120Police officers were actually at the school today, you know, just for safety reasons.
00:05:33.420Now, we're not going to air the recording, but in it, the person has heard making offensive and inappropriate comments about black students, the Pikesville Jewish community and members of the high school staff.
00:05:43.220Now, again, we spoke with parents and students who told us that they're shocked to hear the recording.
00:05:47.480Take a listen to what they have to say.
00:05:50.700It's on social media now, so it's just like, and I go to Pikesville and it's like all over the place, so it's just like weird.
00:06:07.200Okay, so the police are called in because they're worried about violence at the school.
00:06:12.420Meanwhile, the reporters are visiting this man's home and broadcasting footage of where he lives.
00:06:17.440And the news stations are insinuating that this principal said something so horrible that they can't even air it on television.
00:06:23.740Now, to be fair, they didn't have to air it because other media outlets were spreading it all over the Internet.
00:06:29.220Philip Lewis, the deputy editor of Huffington Post, posted the audio along with a message implying the principal's guilt.
00:06:36.460Here's what he wrote at the time, back in January.
00:06:38.360He said, quote, Baltimore County Public Schools is investigating the principal at Pikesville High for alleged derogatory remarks about students and staff.
00:06:46.400A voice believed to be the principal can be heard ranting about black students and Jewish families.
00:06:52.120Well, who exactly believed the voice to be the principal?
00:06:55.320And whoever those people are, are they reliable?
00:07:01.500He certainly didn't investigate the recording himself, but in reply to Philip's post, a lot of people called for the principal's termination anyway.
00:07:09.280One person said, what's there to investigate?
00:07:34.120You know, I seriously don't understand why I have to constantly put up with these dumbasses here every day.
00:07:40.000Between these ungrateful black kids who can't test their way out of a paper bag, or these teachers who don't get it, how hard is it to get these students to meet their grade level expectations?
00:07:53.360Lawrence and Ravenel should have never been hired.
00:09:18.600And then the line at the end, I'm going to join the other side, it doesn't make any sense, but it's so on the nose as to be almost comical.
00:09:27.700But local news media in Baltimore didn't share any of this skepticism.
00:09:31.780One 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.
00:09:41.320It can't possibly be fake because someone put the bare minimum amount of effort into it to make it seem legitimate, which must mean that it is legitimate.
00:09:50.720We're investigating this to determine whether or not it's real or not.
00:09:53.600And if it were me and I was still in office, I would wait.
00:09:57.100I would wait until authenticating this type of thing unless these folks know something about this principle that we don't know.
00:10:06.020Well, if it's not him, then whoever did this is really good at that.
00:10:12.700And I just find it hard to believe that there's someone associated with Pikesville High School that has so much of an axe to grind that they're willing to get this incredibly good artificial intelligence recording and make it sound so real and personal to the story that is at Pikesville High School.
00:10:54.300And how could anyone at the school possibly have an axe to grind?
00:10:56.820How could any faculty member conceivably want to concoct some race hoax in order to bring down the principal?
00:11:01.920When have people ever lied about being victims of racism?
00:11:04.440Somehow that kind of thinking still exists in this country in 2024 after about 10 million other race hoaxes have been exposed.
00:11:11.640But even so, 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 race hoax.
00:11:34.500On January the 17th, 2024, the Baltimore County Police Department became aware of a voice recording being circulated on social media.
00:11:45.800It was alleged the voice captured on the audio file belonged to Mr. Eric Eisworth, the principal at the Pikesville High School.
00:11:53.620We now have conclusive evidence that the recording was not authentic.
00:12:02.300The Baltimore County Police Department reached that determination after conducting an extensive investigation,
00:12:09.020which included bringing in a forensic analyst contracted with the FBI to review the recording.
00:12:15.740The results of the analysis indicated the recording contained traces of AI-generated content.
00:12:25.020Detectives obtained a second expert opinion from a forensic analyst with the University of California, Berkeley,
00:12:31.880who also determined the recording was not authentic.
00:12:35.560Based off of those findings and further investigation, it's been determined the recording was generated through the use of artificial intelligence technology.
00:12:47.540Through their investigation, detectives allege Mr. Darian, who was the athletic director at the high school,
00:12:54.400made the recording to retaliate against the principal who had launched an investigation into the potential mishandling of school funds.
00:13:02.460All right, so that's the basics of the case.
00:13:05.340Oddly enough, watching that, there are certain parts where his voice doesn't match up with his mouth,
00:13:10.220so it actually looks, parts of that look AI-generated too.
00:13:12.800Maybe the whole thing is AI. Maybe none of this is real. Does Baltimore even exist? I don't know.
00:14:21.420And then Darian allegedly shared the audio file with another teacher, who's a black woman who has since resigned.
00:14:27.940And then she, in turn, shared it with a student who put it on social media.
00:14:31.880As of now, nobody else has been charged with any wrongdoing except this athletic director.
00:14:36.660Now, as a quick aside, you notice what Darian chose to include in the fake audio?
00:14:41.300There's an angry complaint in there about black students performing poorly on test scores.
00:14:45.680It's interesting that this is something the athletic director thought to include in his fake racist screed.
00:14:52.140That's how broken Baltimore schools are now.
00:14:54.960The only impassioned comments you'll hear about black students failing their tests is in an AI-generated deepfake designed to destroy the life of the school's white principal.
00:15:06.460Another thing I thought when I heard that recording, I said, like, yeah, some of the language here is not great, but, like, at least he cares about it.
00:15:11.580I didn't know the administrators at these schools actually even cared that much about the fact that these kids are failing their tests.
00:15:20.880I said, no, it turns out, no, no, that was all fake.
00:15:24.240But this case was apparently solved by analysts who determined conclusively that the recording was AI.
00:15:30.700And 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.
00:15:37.020But the Baltimore Banner interviewed several of these experts last month, and they determined with 99% certainty that they were dealing with AI based on some telltale signs.
00:15:45.780One of the experts said, quote, there's some signs of editing, like putting different pieces together.
00:15:50.600This has the sound features of AI generation.
00:15:53.960Additionally, there was a lack of consistent breathing, breathing sounds or pauses in the recording, as well as unusually clean background sounds.
00:16:02.840The analyst 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.
00:16:11.680So this is pretty open and shut at a technical level, if you know what you're listening for, which most people don't.
00:16:20.840It was not a sophisticated deepfake at all.
00:16:25.420Which is very troubling because even then, even though it was not sophisticated, it took months until the truth came out and this principal could clear his name.
00:16:32.440That's how long it took the FBI, Berkeley, and several other AI experts to vindicate this man.
00:16:37.500What this means is that we have officially entered into a new era of race hoaxes.
00:16:41.680And we all knew that this would happen eventually.
00:17:47.580Keep in mind, again, that this fake recording, which does at least sound like a real human being, at least it does to me, was made by some dumb race hoax or working at a public school.
00:17:58.080I mean, what could someone with a bit more expertise and access to better technology do even now with our current technology?
00:18:05.700And what happens when the video deep fakes become as convincing as the audio ones?
00:18:10.500Then we're going to have real problems.
00:18:12.720Fake hate crimes will be the least of our worries.
00:18:14.640I mean, we're talking about the total destabilization of society.