About the position
The AIAL is looking for three PhD students interested in AI accountability research to join the lab. As enthusiasm and hype continues to dominate, the scope of AI research and product continues to expand into an ever wider area, topic, and practice. Traditional single disciplinary approaches are thus redundant to meaningfully studying the AI ecology.

At the AIAL, we have a project first approach where the specific domain, research method, and data sources we utilise are driven by the vision and objective of a given project, rather than following a traditional disciplinary approach to tackle a given problem.

The AIAL is a vibrant interdisciplinary research lab that weaves together scientific rigour and real world practice. Thus, applicants with experience and enthusiasm for interdisciplinary collaboration (across academia, civil society, and policy) will thrive in this research environment.

We are looking for three fully-funded PhD students to work on overlapping and complementary projects on the topics of:

• Systematic study of corporate capture, wealth accumulation, extractive practices of the AI industry
• Qualitative and quantitative approaches to revealing, demystifying, and mapping AI research to real world application and downstream societal impact
• Holistic approaches to algorithmic/dataset audit and model evaluation with a focus of surfacing, diagnosing and mitigating injustice, inequity, and infringement of fundamental rights
• Conceptual and theoretical approaches audits, particularly tacking theories of change, methodologies, and frameworks that need to embed and drive meaningful audit practices
• Theoretical and practical machine learning approaches to evaluating large AI systems with the focus of understanding, interpretation, and explanation of model behaviour and capabilities
• Critical and constructive approaches to understanding, challenging, and dismantling systemic injustice and harm potentially encoded and perpetuated by AI systems

Required academic background and experience:
We welcome applications from any (or a combination) of the following backgrounds:

• Science and Technology Studies
• Critical data, information, communication, and/or media studies
• Afro-feminist, race and decolonial studies
• Machine learning
• Statistics
• Computer science
• Cognitive science, particularly embodied and enactive approaches to cognition
• Digital anthropology with skills in digital ethnographic methods
• Law, with a particular focus on any of the following: fundamental rights, privacy protection, freedom of expression/movement, copyright and IP rights, liability, and non-discrimination

Applicants with familiarity, experience, and prior knowledge of the following are ideal:

• Familiarity with the broad algorithmic audit landscape, particularly internal corporate audits and third party independent audits
• Familiarity with European regulations, particularly pertaining to mandatory audits and conformity assessments
• Experience executing algorithmic/dataset audits

Entry requirements: a minimum of a first or second-class degree or a Masters degree in the disciplines mentioned above or in a relevant discipline.

Study-mode: full-time

To apply:
Email: [email protected] with subject line: “AIAL PhD”
Please include
1.a letter of motivation
2. a CV
3. representative academic work