Research Associate/Fellow in Safe and Ethical AI

Role Description

Department

This role will give you the opportunity to advance state-of-art and empirical research in the ethical dimensions of safe Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Autonomous Systems (AS) in a range of application domains including autonomous driving and healthcare. You will be key to establishing a new Centre, building on the work of the Assuring Autonomy International Programme (AAIP), which pioneered approaches to assuring autonomous systems and their machine learning (ML) components.

Role

You will be researching ethical issues concerning the use of AI systems in safety-critical and autonomous applications. Issues of interest include:

• The range of possible harm from AI systems, including but not limited to physical harm
• Responsibility for the outputs and consequences of AI systems
• Explainability and transparency
• Algorithmic fairness
• Trade-offs between desirable AI system properties
• Machine and human autonomy
• Equitable risk distributions from the use of AI
• Effective organisational cultures to ensure safe and ethical AI design and deployment
• Stakeholder engagement and participatory design

This is an inherently interdisciplinary research area and will require you to work closely and effectively with other team members and be able to explain your research clearly and precisely. You will evaluate your research through in-depth case studies, requiring close collaboration with industrial and regulatory partners.

Skills, Experience & Qualification needed

• First degree in Philosophy, or related discipline
• PhD in Applied Ethics (for AI Systems), or equivalent experience
• Knowledge of applied ethics
• Knowledge of ethics of AI
• Ability to learn and, where appropriate, align ethics research with safety analysis and assurance techniques
• Ability to work as part of a diverse and multidisciplinary team

Interview date: To be confirmed

For informal enquiries: please contact Professor Ibrahim Habli on ibrahim.habli@york.ac.uk 

The University strives to be diverse and inclusive – a place where we can ALL be ourselves.

We particularly encourage applications from people who identify as Black, Asian or from a Minority Ethnic background, who are underrepresented at the University.

We offer family friendly, flexible working arrangements, with forums and inclusive facilities to support our staff. #EqualityatYork

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