Why build AI systems that replace people if we can build AI systems that collaborate with people? Hybrid Intelligence is the combination of human and machine intelligence, expanding human intellect instead of replacing it. Our goal is to design Hybrid Intelligent systems, an approach to Artificial Intelligence that puts humans at the centre, changing the course of the ongoing AI revolution.

The project will be recruiting 27 PhD or postdoc positions in total. For more information on the project see  the Hybrid Intelligence Centre.

At the University of Amsterdam, we are looking for a PhD candidate interested in combining deep learning and natural language processing research to model complex contextual information to significantly improve the quality of dialog systems.

While current deep learning methods have been shown to be very effective in generating fluent utterances, these utterances are often only poorly connected to the context of the conversation. In this project, we will investigate the role of context (agent or environment) on natural dialogue generation. In this project, we will explore a several research directions such as the detection and representation of knowledge gaps, the generation of contextually appropriate responses, and novel ways to represent and access large contextual information.

What are you going to do?

You are expected:

• to invent, evaluate and describe novel algorithms for representing, accessing, and manipulating complex contextual information, where contextual information can be natural language utterances but also knowledge bases;
• to integrate such algorithm into an experimental scenario, and evaluate according to quantitative and qualitative indicators including efficiency, explanation quality and trustworthiness, user’s satisfaction;
• to present research results at international conferences, workshops, and journals;
• to become an active member of the research community and to collaborate with other researchers, both within and outside the Informatics Institute;to pursue and complete a PhD thesis within the appointed duration of four years;
• to assist in teaching activities, such as teaching labs and tutorials or supervising bachelor and master students.

What do we require?

You:

• have a Master’s degree in Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, or a closely related field;
•  have a strong scientific and mathematical background in artificial intelligence and a strong interest to solve natural language problems;
• have a good academic record and eagerness to tackle complex scientific problems;
• are able to implement and evaluate learning algorithms, e.g. using Python deep learning toolkits;
• are able to work well in teams and communicate fluently in written and spoken English.

Our offer

A temporary contract for 38 hours per week for the duration of 4 years (the initial appointment will be for a period of 18 months and after satisfactory evaluation it will be extended for a total duration of 4 years) and should lead to a dissertation (PhD thesis). We will draft an educational plan that includes attendance of courses and (international) meetings. We also expect you to assist in teaching undergraduates and master students. 

The salary, depending on relevant experience before the beginning of the employment contract, will be €2,395 to €3,061 (scale P) gross per month, based on a full-time contract (38 hours a week). These amounts are exclusive 8% holiday allowance and 8.3% end-of-year bonus. A favourable tax agreement, the ‘30% ruling’, may apply to non-Dutch applicants. The Collective Labour Agreement of Dutch Universities is applicable.

Are you curious about our extensive package of secondary employment benefits like our excellent opportunities for study and development? Take a look here.

University of Amsterdam

With over 5,000 employees, 30,000 students and a budget of more than 600 million euros, the University of Amsterdam (UvA) is an intellectual hub within the Netherlands. Teaching and research at the UvA are conducted within seven faculties: Humanities, Social and Behavioural Sciences, Economics and Business, Law, Science, Medicine and Dentistry. Housed on four city campuses in or near the heart of Amsterdam, where disciplines come together and interact, the faculties have close links with thousands of researchers and hundreds of institutions at home and abroad.  

The UvA’s students and employees are independent thinkers, competent rebels who dare to question dogmas and aren’t satisfied with easy answers and standard solutions. To work at the UvA is to work in an independent, creative, innovative and international climate characterised by an open atmosphere and a genuine engagement with the city of Amsterdam and society.

Faculty of Science - Informatics Institute

The Faculty of Science has a student body of around 7,000, as well as 1,600 members of staff working in education, research or support services. Researchers and students at the Faculty of Science are fascinated by every aspect of how the world works, be it elementary particles, the birth of the universe or the functioning of the brain, or machines that display intelligent behaviour.

The mission of the Informatics Institute is to perform curiosity-driven and use-inspired fundamental research in Computer Science. The main research themes are Artificial Intelligence, Computational Science and Systems and Network Engineering. Our research involves complex information systems at large, with a focus on collaborative, data driven, computational and intelligent systems, all with a strong interactive component. The Informatics Institute consists of more than 40 members of permanent research faculty, over 25 post-doctoral researchers, and more than 100 PhD students, together representing more than a dozen nationalities.

This PhD position is based in the Language Technology Lab (LTL) which focuses on information access from natural language data. LTL’s work ranges from basic research in natural language processing to key applications in human language technology and covers areas such as machine translation, summarization, question answering, language modeling, and dialog systems.