Content generation technologies, like ChatGPT and DALL-E, are disrupting important aspects of social life surrounding authorship, creativity, and more. TU/e in affiliation with the Ethics of Socially Disruptive Technologies (ESDiT) research consortium is looking for a PhD student to research the social and ethical dimensions of content generation technologies.
Job DescriptionTechnologies have historically changed how we conceptualized the interlocking concepts of originality and creativity and of authorship and ownership. For example, in the oral tradition it was the person telling the story that mattered, not so much the story itself. With the invention of the printing press, stories became artifacts that are trademarked, owned, and sold. Such concepts were again disrupted by technologies like genetically modified food and practices like music sampling and peer-to-peer network sharing.
Today content generation technologies (CGT) are further upending concepts of originality - creativity and authorship - ownership. AI driven GPT-3 can create text and formulate arguments. Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs), such as DALL-E 2, can produce realistic artworks in the style of particular artists. Next to conceptual disruptions, CGT also raise many ethical issues surrounding ownership of intellectual property, trustworthiness and overreliance, and reproduction of human biases in GPT-3 generated texts.
This PhD project takes a critical look at the way CGTs affect the interrelated concepts of originality and creativity on the one hand, and authorship and ownership on the other, and explore the ethical implications of CGT and AI-supported acts of creativity and authorship.
You will have the ability to shape the project in a unique way that matches your interests and background. We see several different paths that would make for a successful project. Perspectives from ethics, epistemology, aesthetics, and legal and political philosophy, feminist philosophy, and non-western traditions are all welcome.
We are looking for someone who has a background in the ethics or philosophy of technology broadly construed and is motivated to engage with local artists, educators, and policy makers affected by content generation technologies.
You will be embedded within the Philosophy and Ethics group in the Faculty of Industrial Engineering and Innovation Sciences at TU/e. The Philosophy & Ethics department at TU/e (https://www.tue.nl/en/research/research-groups/innovation-sciences/philosophy-ethics/) is a vibrant international community, consisting of around 30 members (including 8 PhD students) with research interests ranging from philosophy of science and technology to ethics and the philosophy of AI. We have strong cooperation with other departments and the new Eindhoven Articial intelligence. Systems Institute (EAISI)(
https://www.tue.nl/en/research/institutes/eindhoven-artificial-intelligence-systems-institute/about-eaisi/). The PhD's will also be affiliated with the new center for AI and Philosophy at TU/e. TU/e is part of the 4TU Ethics consortium (https://ethicsandtechnology.eu/), where we cooperate closely on research and education of students (TU/e, Delft, Twente, Wageningen).
You will be part of ESDiT research community.
Ethics of Socially Disruptive Technologies (ESDiT) is a 10-year long (2020-2030) international research program of 7 academic institutions in the Netherlands (TU/e, TUDelft, Utrecht University, UMC Utrecht, University of Twente, Leiden University, and Wageningen University & Research). ESDiT engages in breakthrough research at the intersections of ethics, philosophy, technology, engineering and social sciences. The consortium has over 100 researchers (PhDs, postdocs, professors, doctors) working on themes in the ethics and philosophy of technology in the Netherlands. ESDiT comes with unique mentoring and career development opportunities for PhD students in the program.
The project will be supervised by Patrik Hummel, Emily Sullivan, and Philip Nickel.
The desired starting date of the position is 1 September 2023.