The General Interaction group at the Department of Information and Computing Sciences currently offers a 4-year PhD position. The group is led by Professor Peter Werkhoven. The position includes research as well as teaching.

Research
The steady development of AI and its application in many domains will have a tremendous impact on society. With this development, the question arises how AI technology can be applied in a way that meets society's needs best? In the terminology of the EU: these AI systems have to be trustworthy, ethical, responsible, explainable, transparent, controllable, privacy-preserving, secure, and safe. The research field, covering these issues is Artificial (General) Intelligence safety, in short, AI safety.

In particular, automated driving (autonomous driving being the highest level of automated driving) draws a lot of attention, since for such a “high risk” application AI safety is crucial, and the issues mentioned above are not satisfactorily resolved yet. Recently substantial progress has been made in AI safety research, addressing the conceptual problems related to the ethical and safe behaviour of advanced AI and to the security of those systems. Key findings, a.o. are the “orthogonality-based disentanglement of responsibilities” principle, the requirement of ethical goal functions, and a “social technological feedback loop” to specify and update the goal function.

We are looking for a PhD candidate to build upon these findings and to investigate:

• the requirements and characteristics of an adequate ethical goal function for automated driving;
• a proper system architecture that can meet the road safety requirements for automated driving;
• the proper ethical goal(function) specifications for automated driving (making use of a “socio-technological feedback loop”);
• the validation of the chosen system architecture, goal function, and algorithm chosen in a representative ‘automated driving’ setting.

You will be appointed at Utrecht University and supervised by Professor Peter Werkhoven (Utrecht University), Professor Marieke Martens (Eindhoven University of Technology), and Dr. Leon Kester (TNO).

Teaching
You will be involved in supporting the preparation of Bachelor's and Master's courses, offered by the Department of Information and Computing Sciences. Furthermore, you will teach these courses and supervise student theses.

We are looking for a candidate with:

• an MSc in Artificial Intelligence;
• and strong affinity with the science of human behaviour and ethics. You also have excellent English communication skills, both in speech and writing.

We offer an exciting opportunity to contribute to an ambitious and international education programme with highly motivated students and to conduct your own research project at a renowned research university. You will receive appropriate training, personal supervision, and guidance for both your research and teaching tasks, which will provide an excellent start to an academic career.

In addition, you will have:

• the opportunity to work in a collaborative, social, and dedicated team of Researchers;
• a full-time position for 4 years;
• a full-time gross salary starting at €2,395 in the first year and increasing to €3,061 in the fourth year (scale P Collective Labour Agreement Dutch Universities (cao));
• benefits including 8% holiday bonus and 8.3% end-of-year bonus;
• a pension scheme, partially paid parental leave, and flexible employment conditions based on the Collective Labour Agreement Dutch Universities.

In addition to the employment conditions laid down in the cao for Dutch Universities, Utrecht University has a number of its own arrangements. For example, there are agreements on professional development, leave arrangements and sports. We also give you the opportunity to expand your terms of employment yourself via the Employment Conditions Selection Model. This is how we like to encourage you to continue to grow.

More information about working at the Faculty of Science can be found here.

The Department of Information and Computing Sciences is nationally and internationally renowned for its fundamental and applied research in computer science and information science. In our constantly changing (digital) society, the department of Information and Computing Sciences is constantly looking for new, realistic ways to push the boundaries of both science and social application. We contribute to innovative information technologies through the development and application of new concepts, theories, algorithms, and software methods. Relevant areas of interdisciplinary research include Game Research, Foundations of Complex Systems, Applied Data Science, and Artificial Intelligence.

The Department has, among others, close collaborations with the University Medical Centre, the Departments of Physics and Mathematics, and the Faculties of Humanities and Geosciences. The Department offers Bachelor's programmes in Computer Science and Information Science, and six English language Research Master's programmes in Artificial Intelligence, Business Informatics, Computing Science, Human-Computer Interaction, Game and Media Technology, and Applied Data Science. High enrolment figures and good student ratings make education very successful. The department currently comprises 17 Chairs and 109 other scientific staff, including Postdocs and PhD candidates.

At the Faculty of Science, there are 6 departments to make a fundamental connection with: Biology, Chemistry, Information and Computing Sciences, Mathematics, Pharmaceutical Sciences, and Physics. Each of these is made up of distinct institutes that work together to focus on answering some of humanity’s most pressing problems. More fundamental still are the individual research groups – the building blocks of our ambitious scientific projects.

Utrecht University is a friendly and ambitious university at the heart of an ancient city. We love to welcome new scientists to our city – a thriving cultural hub that is consistently rated as one of the world’s happiest cities. We are renowned for our innovative interdisciplinary research and our emphasis on inspirational research and excellent education. We are equally well-known for our familiar atmosphere and the can-do attitude of our people. This fundamental connection attracts Researchers, Professors and PhD candidates from all over the globe, making both the university and the Faculty of Science a vibrant international and wonderfully diverse community.