Human-centred and ethical AI practices for industry

Summary

This is a PhD scholarship that is fully funded by Kainos and includes a significant additional budget for travel, training and equipment. This is an excellent opportunity to work with academics and industry leaders.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is the use of computational techniques to perform a task that can be considered ‘intelligent’. With the ever increasing number of technologies that use AI, it is important to ensure that these products are ethical and human centred. The overall aim of this PhD is to co-create and evaluate an evidence-based AI ethics toolkit to assist developers in assuring and assessing the ethical quality of AI products and services.  A toolkit could include interactive assistants, protocols and checklists to assist developers and designers when implementing and assessing AI technologies. It is also critical to use tools that help foresee any unintended consequences or misuse of these AI technologies and to ‘design out’ anticipated flaws and mitigate potentially unethical consequences.

Objectives:

This PhD may address the following tentative objectives:

1. Complete a literature review to synthesise the scientific research to date on the topic of AI ethics
2. To understand the current practices of developers in terms of ethical AI development, and to understand user behaviour and interaction with AI products
3. Take a stakeholder-centred co-creation approach to develop a digital toolkit to assist project teams in designing ethical AI products and services
4. To validate the digital toolkit through experiments, for example, testing what impact the toolkit has on AI developer decision making and the identification and mitigation of ethical issues and risks
5. To explore the design of explanation user interfaces as a method to promote ethical AI in human-AI collaboration and decision support systems

Example application areas

This PhD may focus on 3 application areas (tentative):

1. ethical human-AI collaboration and decision support (e.g. explanation user interfaces, transparency, explainability, interpretability, traceability etc.),
2. ethical data science/machine learning practices (e.g. mitigating algorithmic bias, ethical considerations around model selection etc.),
3. ethical design of specific AI use cases, e.g. chatbots.

Essential criteria

Applicants should hold, or expect to obtain, a First or Upper Second Class Honours Degree in a subject relevant to the proposed area of study.

We may also consider applications from those who hold equivalent qualifications, for example, a Lower Second Class Honours Degree plus a Master’s Degree with Distinction.

In exceptional circumstances, the University may consider a portfolio of evidence from applicants who have appropriate professional experience which is equivalent to the learning outcomes of an Honours degree in lieu of academic qualifications.

Desirable Criteria

If the University receives a large number of applicants for the project, the following desirable criteria may be applied to shortlist applicants for interview.

• First Class Honours (1st) Degree
• Masters at 70%
• Experience using research methods or other approaches relevant to the subject domain
• Sound understanding of subject area as evidenced by a comprehensive research proposal
• Publications - peer-reviewed

Equal Opportunities

The University is an equal opportunities employer and welcomes applicants from all sections of the community, particularly from those with disabilities.

Appointment will be made on merit.

Funding and eligibility

This project is funded by:

• Kainos

The scholarship will cover tuition fees at the Home rate and a maintenance allowance of £18,622 per annum for three years (subject to satisfactory academic performance).

• Candidates with pre-settled or settled status under the EU Settlement Scheme, who also satisfy a three year residency requirement in the UK prior to the start of the course for which a Studentship is held MAY receive a Studentship covering fees and maintenance.
• Republic of Ireland (ROI) nationals are eligible to receive a Studentship covering fees and maintenance (ROI nationals don’t need to have pre-settled or settled status under the EU Settlement Scheme to qualify).
• Other non-ROI EU applicants are ‘International’ are not eligible for this source of funding.
• Applicants who already hold a doctoral degree or who have been registered on a programme of research leading to the award of a doctoral degree on a full-time basis for more than one year (or part-time equivalent) are NOT eligible to apply for an award.