Call for Applications
Postdoc in Predictive modelling for Conversational AI
KTH, School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Stockholm, Sweden
https://www.kth.se/en/om/work-at-kth/lediga-jobb/what:job/jobID:369978/where:4/
Deadline for applications: January 29, 2021
KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm has grown to become one of Europe’s leading technical and engineering universities, as well as a key centre of intellectual talent and innovation. We are Sweden’s largest technical research and learning institution and home to students, researchers and faculty from around the world. Our research and education covers a wide area including natural sciences and all branches of engineering, as well as architecture, industrial management, urban planning, history and philosophy.
We are seeking a Postdoc for the project “Prediction and Coordination for Conversational AI”, led by Prof. Gabriel Skantze at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden. The project is part of our larger goal of developing systems, such as social robots, that can engage in spoken interaction with humans in the same natural way we interact with each other. In the project we use data of spoken interaction between humans and explore models that can make predictions about the speakers’ future behavior, including what they will say and when they will speak. These models will then be used to allow a conversational agent to anticipate the human partner’s actions and adapt accordingly, in order to improve coordination, such as smooth turn-taking. An important aspect of the project is also to analyze these models to gain better understanding of how communicative signals enable prediction and coordination in conversation.
The work builds upon our previous and ongoing work around the development of such models using self-supervised learning (e.g., Skantze 2017, Roddy et al 2018, Ekstedt & Skantze 2020), and you will work together with a PhD student already working in the project. The modelling involves several modalities, including speech, text and gaze, and it is therefore advantageous if you have experience of methods from both speech technology and NLP. The project is highly interdisciplinary, and we would like to see applicants with interests in both machine learning, linguistics, and psychology.
The position is mainly a research position, with a small fraction of departmental duties (e.g. teaching). This postdoctoral position is a full-time employed position for two years. The starting date is open for discussion, though ideally we would like the successful candidate to start as soon as possible.
Applicants should have a PhD degree in a subject relevant for the research, such as computer science, speech technology, computational linguistics, or cognitive science. The position requires good skills in programming, machine learning, and statistical analysis. Good command of English, in writing and speaking, is a prerequisite for presenting research results in international periodicals and at conferences.
Deadline for application is January 29, 2021.
For more information, see:
https://www.kth.se/en/om/work-at-kth/lediga-jobb/what:job/jobID:369978/where:4/
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Gabriel Skantze
Professor in Speech Technology
KTH Royal Institute of Technology
skantze@kth.se
www.kth.se/profile/skantze