AI Can Convincingly Mimic A Person's Handwriting Style, Researchers Say

AI tools already allow people to generate eerily convincing voice clones and deepfake videos. Soon, AI could also be used to mimic a person's handwriting style. Bloomberg: Researchers at Abu Dhabi's Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI) say they have developed technology that can imitate someone's handwriting based on just a few paragraphs of written material. To accomplish that, the researchers used a transformer model, a type of neural network designed to learn context and meaning in sequential data. The team at MBZUAI, which calls itself the world's first AI university, has been granted a patent by the US Patent and Trademark Office for the artificial intelligence system.

The researchers have not yet released the feature, but it represents a step forward in an area that has drawn interest from academics for years. There have been apps and even robots that can generate handwriting, but recent advances in AI have accelerated character recognition techniques dramatically. As with other AI tools, however, it's unclear if the benefits will outweigh the harms. The technology could help the injured to write without picking up a pen, but it also risks opening the door to mass forgeries and misuse. The tool will need to be deployed thoughtfully, two of the researchers said in an interview.

Security Risk: Less than you might think

[Midnight_Falcon]

If you're like most people, you sign a scribble most of the time and have a full 'signature' reserved for things like your passport. And over the years, you've probably also observed that absolutely no charges or anything else has been rejected if you signed sloppily, a mere scribble, or even outright wrote another name like "Mr Bojangles." For many these days, you're usually docusigning something using a cursive font.

Legally, any mark you make on paper that you represent as your signature is your signature. So, you can sign however you want, the only thing in question is if you actually signed it. Having AI forge someone's signature for purposes such as identity theft doesn't get you a heck of a lot further than just writing their name in cursive; no one is really checking.

In places like where it matters more, like in person at a bank for verification or when you go to a ballot box, they have you sign live in front of them and verify this signature to the one in the registration database...AI won't help you a lot there.

So, I think the handwriting AI poses some security risks, but way less than the deepfake AI for voice and video.

Re:

[MDMurphy]

I'm left handed. The common English handwriting style has never been my strong suit. I stopped cursive as soon as they let me in school only printed since.

For a long time, I've done no writing at all that wouldn't fit on a post-it note. I'd be surprised if anyone could find enough of my writing from the past decade to train an AI model. And if it did get trained, the chances of it matching what I might write now are pretty slim.

Re:

[Kisai]

While that is true, I feel we're venturing into a somewhat murky area because digital signatures are a thing.

For practical reasons I could see mimicing handwriting useful to someone who lost the ability to write (eg brain damage, quadriplegic or amputations/loss of feeling of hands/fingers) maybe desiring this. But there's pretty much no application that makes this useful for anyone than those trying to commit identity theft and already have the means to forge documents.

You're right, nobody is checking, and

Re:

[nonBORG]

There is a application which you may call fraud. There is such a thing as a signature machine which is designed to copy replicate your hand written signature and is used by celebrities to send fans hand signed notes, this is the same thing next level where instead of just signed notes you can get a hand written and signed note. I am not wanting any such thing from a celebrity but some people value this kind of thing I suppose. To me it already has little value but much less for the fact that it would be wri

Re:Security Risk: Less than you might think

[Chris Mattern]

"Legally, any mark you make on paper that you represent as your signature is your signature."

Yep. It is legal for an illiterate to sign a document by simply marking an "X"; this actually used to be somewhat common, with the X annotated by someone present who could write, "John Smith, his mark."

Re:

[tlhIngan]

Exactly. You can sign with anything, even an "X" (which is how the illiterate used to sign things which is why the signature line starts with X.

For vitally important things, you either get a witness to watch and verify you signed the document, your get a notary public who will witness and seal the document.

And even that isn't bulletproof - because someone can forge signatures and claim you signed it. But just because you have a piece of paper with a signature on it, doesn't mean it was signed - after all, d

Re:

[nospam007]

Can't wait for the new Hitler diaries.

Re:

[CAIMLAS]

I personally use different signatures for different purposes, just so I can dispute things should it come to that.

Eg. I have a special point of sale signature, mainly because I'm lazy: X :)

I doubt it ever will, since most cc fraud is online. But it's still easier than writing my full name.

AI = Fuzzy pattern repeater

[Baron_Yam]

This is essentially an infinitely stupid person with an excellent level of skill in producing things similar to whatever it was trained on.

It doesn't matter if the pattern is expressed in sounds or pixels, so the news that it can do signatures isn't really news. It's more 'someone figured out an AI could forge signatures'.

So can a chicken.

[Fly Swatter]

Please Scratch below:
X____\\xxVMW__INXVI|\./_______________

Maybe it's just my handwriting though, never mind.

So Can An Artist.

[zenlessyank]

And a photocopier. So what?

Re:

[dvice]

You can detect photocopier with microscope as explained at the start of this video where the person makes a robot that uses a pen to forge a handwriting and thus makes it impossible to detect.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

Also

[bigdavex]

AI can convincingly produce researchers output, AI says.

Signatures almost never get checked

[gweihir]

There is no point. A signature itself does not have any reasonable level of authenticity. Signing something is not to create a signature, but to perform the act of signing. This is why on really important stuff, you have witnesses that are professionally bound in some legal way to be honest.

when the West was really wild

[Walt Dismal]

Sheriff, how did Black Bart get a signed deed giving my ranch to him???

Oh. AI.

If it can impersonate my handwriting

[penguinoid]

Can it also read my handwriting? Please?

Re:

[Tablizer]

Sure!

Siri: It says, "Help me, I need a shrink!"

A checking could mimic my handwriting

[jasonssecretaccount]

Just saying

Where there's a holographic will

[Ken_g6]

... there's a way to forge a will.

So holographic wills may go away. Notaries are probably going to love this development.

Re:

[MIPSPro]

Notaries are probably going to love this development.

Honestly, I'm cool with it. Handwriting "authentication" was a dumb and vulnerable system anyway. Go notaries!

How will the AI generate the text on paper ?

[Alain Williams]

Via a high resolution printer maybe. That might pass casual inspection. Examine that closely and the dots probably become visible. What the print process will not generate is the indent in the paper that the pressure of a pen leaves.

Suicide notes

[knoledgesponge]

Were my first thought

Re:

[Kernel Kurtz]

Were my first thought

And ransom notes, in a similar vein.

You havenâ(TM)t seen mine.

[zawarski]

My cursive changes everytime I write something. I canâ(TM)t even copy my own style.

AI Duplicating Handwriting.

[Motleypuss]

Good luck copying my handwriting. I write like a crack-addled doctor. When I write at all, which happened once this year and not at all last year.