Call for PhD Students

PhD Study with the Humanising Machine Intelligence Project at ANU

(Philosophy, Computer Science, Sociology, Political Science and IR, Law)

In advanced industrial societies, we are increasingly dependent on algorithmic systems built around data and AI. These systems are reshaping the welfare state and the administration of criminal justice . They are used to police tax evasion , track down child abusers , and model the path of a pandemic . And they are used to weaponize vast surveillance networks through facial recognition technology . But algorithmic power extends far beyond the state. We spend ever more time working, socialising, and consuming within tech platforms. Our experiences are governed by algorithms that are constantly monitoring and shaping our behaviour and our attention, automatically selecting what we see, and what we don’t see. These online experiences have offline consequences, among them an unprecedented challenge to democratic institutions worldwide. At the same time, tech companies and governments alike are investing billions in developing the infrastructure and research for the next major advance in AI, the next essential platform, the next once-human service that we can automate. We are, in many ways, in the middle of the most exciting, and the most dangerous, technological revolution in recent history.

The Humanising Machine Intelligence project at ANU was established in 2019 to bring together some of the university's world-leading researchers to understand, design, and develop democratically, constitutionally, and culturally legitimate data and AI systems. Our team comprises ten chief investigators from philosophy, computer science, political science, sociology and law, as well as nine research fellows and thus far three PhD students. Our approach is to bring the best of each of our constituent disciplines together to tackle common problems: first understanding the risks and opportunities associated with existing data and AI systems, then answering the foundational questions that must be addressed to build our shared values into machine systems, before designing both technologies and social structures that realise those values.

We invite applications to join this research community through the ANU PhD programs in computer science, philosophy, political science and international relations, law or sociology. HMI PhD students will develop expertise in their home discipline, but will also build the wider set of skills necessary to advance democratically legitimate machine intelligence. An HMI PhD will provide the disciplinary foundations necessary to conduct cutting-edge research at the world's leading research institutions—whether they be in academia or in industry.

Our project is deeply collaborative, with weekly research meetings, alternating between the Data, AI and Society public seminar and work-in-progress meetings of the working groups on our four core themes. Despite the pandemic, we remain a fundamentally international project, with ongoing collaborations with Stanford, Harvard, Carnegie Mellon, Princeton and Cambridge among others.

We seek candidates with deep foundations in at least one of the cognate disciplines underpinning the project, with an enthusiasm for learning from other fields, and a commitment to ensuring that the AI systems that we develop advance values that we all endorse.

We are interested in both Domestic and International Students. The deadline for International Students is 31 August 2020, though there will be another round in April 2021. For Domestic Students the deadline is October 31, with another round in mid-April.

HMI is a diverse and inclusive group of scholars, and the field of data, AI and society needs to hear more from people with an even more diverse range of experiences. We strongly encourage people from historically underrepresented groups to apply, and will provide all the support you need to succeed.