The Semantic Computing Group [1] at Bielefeld Unviersity has three open
positions at the intersection of artificial intelligence, machine
learning and semantic technologies with the goal of developing new
methods for explaining decisions to end users in an interactive manner.
All the positions are available immediately and are associated to the
collaborative research center "Constructing Explainability" involving
the universities of Bielefeld and Paderborn in Germany and funded by the
German Science Foundation (DFG).
Position 1 (Reference Wiss 21666, [2]) is concerned with developing a
new approach to dialog management that allows users to understand how a
machine learned model works. The dialog system will answer specific
questions about a learned classifier. The project is carried out in
cooperation with the Department of Computer Science of Paderborn
University (Prof. Axel Ngonga) and with the faculty of sociology at
Bielefeld University (Prof. Esposito). The tasks comprise of the
development of a protocol for the dialog system, its implementation, and
its validation with end users.
Position 2 (Reference Wiss 21670, [3]) is concerned with the
investigation of criteria that determine the success of an explanation.
For this purpose, the project will develop an ontology that describes
the relevant dimensions and criteria that correlate with the success of
an explanation. This ontology will be developed in cooperation with
other projects in the research center and will serve as a basic
vocabulary to describe explanation phenomena across projects.
Position 3 (Reference Wiss 21673, [4]) is concerned with the development
of new methods supporting informed decision making by supporting users
in the exploration of the space of alternatives for a given decision to
be taken. The goal is to apply methods from the field of probabilistic
and statistical modelling and inference, counterfactual reasoning in
particular. From a methodological point of view, the focus of the
position is on the development of new approaches that combine
statistical reasoning with knowledge bases available as knowledge
graphs. The project is carried out in cooperation with Prof. Stefan Kopp
(Faculty of Technology, Bielefeld University).
All positions are available for four years and offer the possibility to
work towards a PhD degree. The group offers an intellectually
stimulating and international environment with sufficient freedom to
perform own research interests. There is no teaching involved. Knowledge
of German is not required, but a plus. All positions require a MSc
degree in computer science, data science, computational linguistics or
related subject.
The application deadline has been extended to the 7th of July. Please
send your applications directly to Prof. Dr. Philipp Cimiano at
cimiano@techfak.uni-bielefeld.de
The application texts can be found below. Please indicate the reference
in your application.
[1] http://www.sc.cit-ec.uni-bielefeld.de/home/
[2]
https://uni-bielefeld.hr4you.org/job/view/553/research-position-for-the-sfb-trr-318-subproject-b01-pc?page_lang=en
[3]
https://uni-bielefeld.hr4you.org/job/view/567/research-position-for-the-sfb-trr-318-subproject-inf-pc?page_lang=en
[4]
https://uni-bielefeld.hr4you.org/job/view/561/research-position-for-the-sfb-trr-318-subproject-c05-pc?page_lang=en