This may be of interest to anyone graduating with a Ph.D. in the near future.

 

From: Stuart RUSSELL <russell@berkeley.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, June 16, 2021 4:07 PM
To: Stuart RUSSELL <russell@berkeley.edu>
Cc: Martin Fukui <mfukui@berkeley.edu>
Subject: Postdoc fellowships available at Berkeley

 

[This email originated from outside of OSU. Use caution with links and attachments.]

Dear Colleague,

I hope you’re doing well! 

I am writing to let you know about the new postdoctoral Research Fellowships at the Center for Human-Compatible AI at UC Berkeley. If you know of any promising candidates, please either forward this email to them or let us know directly so we can reach out to them.

Some more details are given below and in the official job posting. I’d just like to emphasize the breadth of topics we’re interested in pursuing: the Center’s goal is to develop provably beneficial AI systems, and that includes any and all rigorous methods for creating AI systems whose properties we understand by design.

Thanks and best wishes,

Stuart Russell
Professor of Computer Science and Director of the Center for Human-Compatible AI, UC Berkeley


 

Details of the position

The CHAI Research Fellowship

 

Appointment

Start Date: Flexible
Salary: Negotiated
Apply: Via this form

 

CHAI has created a new Research Fellowship and is seeking applications for the inaugural Fellows. CHAI Research Fellows will work with CHAI faculty members Stuart Russell, Pieter Abbeel, and Anca Dragan and will also have the opportunity to collaborate with CHAI affiliate faculty at Berkeley, other faculty members in Berkeley AI Research (where CHAI is located), and many other institutions. The Fellowship is aimed at training highly qualified postdoctoral researchers to carry out research to advance beneficial AI. 

 

Duties of position

Given the broad and open-ended mandate of the Center to develop provably beneficial AI systems, the post holder will have considerable freedom to pursue novel research projects in areas such as reasoning, decision making, learning, multi-agent systems, and philosophical foundations using the tools of probability theory, game theory, control theory, etc. Topics of particular current interest include

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  • Theoretical foundations of intelligent agent architecture
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  • Expressive formal languages for probability models, including probabilistic programming
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  • Decision making over long time scales
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  • Cumulative lifelong learning
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  • Human-in-the-loop planning and reinforcement learning
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  • Human-robot interaction
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  • The structure and properties of human preferences
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  • Foundations for acting on behalf of multiple humans
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  • Robust cooperation in heterogeneous multiagent systems
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  • Mechanism design for human-machine
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Depending on their interests, Fellows may also lead research collaborations with other CHAI researchers and Berkeley PhD students, advise more junior student researchers, and teach courses relevant to their research. Candidates for the Fellowship are assessed based on their academic and research achievements, as well as on personal merit and leadership qualities.

 

Qualifications

Candidates must have (or be about to obtain) a PhD in a relevant technical discipline (computer science, statistics, mathematics, or theoretical economics) and a record of high-quality published research. A solid understanding of current methods in AI and statistical learning would be an advantage. Candidates need not have done previous work on the AI control problem.

 

Salary & Visa Sponsorship

The CHAI Research Fellowships provide funding for one year, renewable up to three years given satisfactory performance. Salary will be commensurate with qualifications and experience and based on UC Berkeley salary scales. The position is eligible for visa sponsorship. CHAI will also contribute to visa costs for Fellows and their dependents (partner and children). 

 

Application

Apply via this form. Supporting documents include a resume, a one-page statement of interest describing in general terms the kind of research you would like to undertake at CHAI, and the names and email addresses of two academic referees.