Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI) in Amsterdam has a vacancy for a 4-year PhD position in the The Human Centered Data Analytics research group on the subject of Responsible AI for Cultural Heritage.
Job description Are you inspired by human-centered, inclusive AI? And do you have an affinity with cultural heritage? In the HAICu project, we investigate AI for and with the cultural heritage sector, to make cultural heritage (CH) data accessible to citizens, journalists, and other stakeholders. HAICu actively involves users, so that they can be more than passive recipients of information and can help to describe and enrich CH data. Thus, the HAICu project aims to generate and utilize three types of complementary metadata — traditional metadata, citizen-contributed descriptions, and AI-generated labels. This approach ensures a breadth and variety of perspectives. However, each type of metadata can have its own biases. In this project, we are focussed on identifying and addressing the different perspectives and biases in each source. We tackle these issues in both fundamental and applied research in collaboration with the National Museum of World Cultures. In this context, we are looking for a talented PhD student to study one or more of the following topics:
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Bias in AI: methods and metrics to determine to what extent an AI pipeline propagates, exacerbates or introduces bias;
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Inclusivity in AI: methods and guidelines to increase fairness and diversity in data and systems.
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Linked Open Data: explicit representations of provenance and perspectives in data; investigations into bias in Linked Open Data.
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Human computation and citizen science: integration of citizen-contributed labels for cultural heritage objects with professional metadata and AI-generated labels; investigating bias, interrater agreement and quality of such citizen-contributed labels.
Within this broad range of topics, student and supervisor will together decide on specific research questions, taking into account the expertise and interests of the student, the needs of the HAICu project, and the latest developments in the academic field of Responsible AI.
HAICu (digital Humanities - Artificial Intelligence - Cultural heritage) is a large-scale Dutch research project in which AI researchers, Digital Humanities scholars and a wide range of cultural-heritage institutions collaborate. Within the HAICu team, the PhD researcher will participate in Work Package 5, titled “Construction of polyvocal, multimodal narratives.” In this Work Package, CWI will collaborate with UvA and VU and with the National Museum of World Cultures.
The researcher will be based in a dynamic research group called Human-Centered Data Analytics (HCDA). HCDA investigates human-centered, responsible AI in the culture and media sectors. How can we ensure that digital systems are inclusive, promote diversity and can be used to combat misinformation? The HCDA group addresses these important questions. Our work includes a wide range of techniques, such as statistical AI (machine learning), symbolic AI (knowledge graphs, reasoning), and human computation (crowdsourcing). By analyzing empirical evidence of human interactions with data and systems, we derive insights into the impact of design and implementation choices on users. We maintain close collaborations with professionals from the culture and media sectors, as well as social scientists and humanities scholars, through the
Cultural AI Lab and the
AI, Media and Democracy Lab. These interdisciplinary labs provide us with opportunities to work with real data and real-world use cases.