Senior Postdoc opportunity at DaSCI

University of Granada, Department of Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence, and the DaSCI Andalusian Institute in Data Science and Computational Intelligence

 

Project title: Ethical, Responsible and General-Purpose Artificial Intelligence Systems

Principal Investigators: Dr Isaac Triguero, Professor Francisco Herrera

Project reference: TSI-100927-2023-1, funded by University-Industry Research Program (ENIA), aimed at the development of AI, for its dissemination, and education within the framework of the European Recovery, Transformation, and Resilience Plan, funded by the European Union-Next Generation EU.

Industrial Partner: Repsol S.A.

Salary range: €35,000 – €45,000 per annum depending on skills, qualifications and experience.

 

Project summary

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has emerged as a transformative technology across various sectors, with expectations of profound societal impact. However, concerns are growing about its unchecked use and its potential effects on science, education, culture, communication, and other aspects of human life. This project addresses the ethical dimensions of AI, focusing on responsible and ethical AI development in line with Spain’s National AI Strategy (ENIA). The project seeks to balance AI’s benefits and risks, aiming to create robust, transparent, fair, and accountable AI systems that protect individual and collective rights.

A key area of exploration is General Purpose Artificial Intelligence Systems (GPAIS), which are pushing the boundaries of AI towards performing tasks previously limited to human intelligence. Platforms like ChatGPT exemplify these advancements but also raise concerns about traceability and ethical transparency. In response, this initiative proposes the development of a platform for Reliable, Ethical, and Responsible AI (IAFER), including disruptive AI models such as GPAIS. The project’s objectives include advancing research on ethical AI, developing GPAIS with a focus on responsibility, transferring knowledge to address real-world industry and societal needs, promoting expertise in responsible AI, and fostering international collaboration for broader social impact.

 

The candidate

Highly motivated candidates are invited to apply for this exciting 12-month postdoctoral position at the University of Granada to develop the next generation of Trustworthy GPAIS within this prestigious research programme. Applications are welcome worldwide. Applicants are expected to have:

 

  • A PhD degree in Data Science or related area
  • Experience publishing at top journals (e.g. IEEE TPAMI, Machine Learning),  and conferences (e.g. NeurIPS, ICML)
  • Knowledge and expertise in at least a subset of the core techniques required in this project: general-purpose AI, explainable AI, foundation models, or few-shot learning.
  • Experience in specialised tools such as R, Python, pytorch, or tensorflow.
  • Excellent communication skills and experience in working as part of a team. He/she should also have experience in writing reports and conducting effective bibliographic research.
  • Other desirable skills include teaching experience, demonstrated peer-esteem activities and the ability to train and mentor PhD and MSc students.

The candidate is expected to start in January 2025.

How to Apply

The formal application has not started yet, but will be available at https://investigacion.ugr.es/recursos-humanos/personal/contratos on November 14th 2024 (deadline: November 25th).  Expressions of interest shoul be sent to Isaac Triguero at triguero@decsai.ugr.es.

 

About the Academic Team:

 

Isaac Triguero is an active member of the data science and computational intelligence communities. His most prominent works include the development of state-of-the-art techniques in large-scale data pre-processing which are directly related to the theme of this proposal but traditionally applied with a different goal. Additionally, Dr Triguero has extensive experience in the two case studies of this project: time series problems, featuring

global models in real-world applications, and few shot image classification. He

has led 6 PhD students to completion in the topics of data preprocessing (J. Maillo and H.

Lam), AutoML (J. Angarita), few-shot learning (H. Song), time series classification and interpretation (H. Meng) and image classification (M. Jimenez). His current research project as a Distinguished María Zambrano Senior Researcher is focused on general purpose artificial intelligence. I. Triguero has been a PI of three research projects in the United Kingdom totalling more than 500000GBP and Co-PI of two Knowledge Transfer projects at the University of Granada (>200000€).

 

Francisco Herrera received his M.Sc. in Mathematics in 1988 and Ph.D. in Mathematics in 1991, both from the University of Granada, Spain. He is a Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence at the University of Granada and Director of the Andalusian Research Institute in Data Science and Computational Intelligence (DaSCI). He’s an academician in the Royal Academy of Engineering (Spain).  He has been the supervisor of over 60 Ph.D. students. He has published more than 600 journal papers, receiving more than 158000 citations (Scholar Google, H-index 186). He has been nominated as a Highly Cited Researcher (in the fields of Computer Science and Engineering, respectively, 2014 to present, Clarivate Analytics). He acts as editorial member of a dozen of journals. His current research interests include among others, computational intelligence, information fusion and decision making, trustworthy artificial intelligence, general purpose artificial intelligence and data science.

 

The team of this Research Grant is composed of 12 academics, 4 postdocs and more than 10 PhD students, as well as the collaboration of Repsol S.A. and the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia.