16 February 2023
In the context of the sector plan for the Humanities titled ‘Tradition in transition’, the faculty currently has a vacant Assistant Professor position as part of the research theme Humane AI. Within this research theme the focus is on data and platforms for social, cultural and economic innovation.
You will provide education in a dynamic context with ample opportunities for the development of innovative teaching methods. Your research will be part of one of the following three research schools (depending on your expertise and profile): Amsterdam Center for Language and Communication; Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis or the Institute for Logic, Language, and Computation. These are three of the five Research Schools within the Amsterdam Institute for Humanities Research.
Current developments in AI have a huge influence on how humans use text: AI is commonly involved at all stages of learning to read and write (for instance using interactive apps and digital tools in schools and at home), and continues to affect how people perceive, produce and interpret texts. These technological advances are the subject of current societal debates that Humanities research can contribute to and shape. The department of Dutch is looking for a colleague whose research and teaching focuses on the effects AI has on the generation and interpretation of texts as well as human interactions. You have experience with developing, implementing and applying analytical methods (such as corpus analysis, data/text mining, and/or computational modelling) and are able to analyse the consequences of AI applications, in particular for human interactions, by looking at texts, language and/or other relevant domains that are relevant to culture in the Netherlands. You will incorporate analytical and/or computational methods in relevant courses of our undergraduate and masters programmes and develop a (cross-disciplinary) research line related to these empirical domains. Examples of such cross-disciplinary research topics are the role of AI in health communication, human versus machine generated (creative) writing, AI and authorship, AI and language/literacy education and acquisition, misinformation and digital literacy, and the analysis of AI generated argumentation. You are expected to collaborate in teaching and research activities with other members of the department and to actively seek collaborations with relevant disciplines.
In the context of the sector plan for the Humanities titled ‘Tradition in transition’, the faculty currently has a vacant Assistant Professor position as part of the research theme Humane AI. Within this research theme the focus is on data and platforms for social, cultural and economic innovation.
You will provide education in a dynamic context with ample opportunities for the development of innovative teaching methods. Your research will be part of the Amsterdam Center for Language and Communication (ACLC), one of the five research schools of the Amsterdam Institute for Humanities Research. The ACLC prioritises diversity (taken in a holistic sense, e.g., ethnicity, social and/or linguistic background, gender, sexuality) and is committed to creating an inclusive research environment.
It has been long acknowledged that current technological advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI) can play an important role in breaking communication barriers between people using Sign Languages (SLs) and people using spoken languages. Progress in such applied AI, however, is only possible through a meticulous description and typology of sign language grammars. This knowledge will allow an informed collaboration with experts in AI and SL linguistics that can result in more accurate automatic extraction of the manual and non-manual components of sign language utterances and how these map onto meaning units. The latter is necessary to attain human-like sign language translations. We expect you to take up this challenge by developing a research line lying at the interface between studies on SLs and AI. You are a SL linguist with a broad knowledge of the typology and grammars of SLs, and well-positioned to connect the fields of theoretical linguistics and AI (e.g., computer vision, sign language recognition and sign language translation). You will develop and teach courses at all levels in the Sign Linguistics programme (such as introduction, transcription, phonology/morphology, and/or syntax of sign languages). You will also develop, implement and teach materials about the interface between (sign) linguistics, multimodal communication and AI in other relevant courses and, depending on your expertise, you will teach in courses that are part of programmes such as the BA Linguistics, BSc Cognition, Language & Communication, and/or the master programmes Language and Society; General Linguistics and the research master Linguistics and communication. These programmes adopt an interdisciplinary approach and you are expected to be open to fields that might not be directly related to your research focus. We welcome your commitment to the development of a stimulating and collaborative educational atmosphere for teachers and students alike.
Experimental and computational approaches have become prominent in the linguistic study of meaning over the past two decades. Experimental methods have made it possible to obtain more detailed empirical insights, not only concerning categorical distinctions (e.g., whether a given construction is felicitous in a given context) but also more fine-grained quantitative patterns. Computational methods have been used to develop new models of semantic composition and pragmatic reasoning, as well as the cognitive processes underlying linguistic interpretation and the evolutionary processes underlying semantic change over time and prevalent typological patterns. The rise of experimental and computational methods has also allowed the field to adopt a more holistic and comprehensive view on language—for instance, while the focus is still predominantly on written text, ever more attention is paid to the semantic contribution of intonation and visual linguistic elements such as hand gestures and facial expressions.
The Institute for Logic, Language and Computation at the University of Amsterdam is looking for an Assistant Professor to conduct research on Experimental and Computational approaches to Semantics and Pragmatics, and to contribute to our educational programmes in linguistics and closely related disciplines. We are particularly interested in candidates whose research agenda is driven by fundamental scientific questions as well as important societal issues, with a proven track record of achieving both scientific and societal impact.
Your research will be part of the research programme Language Sciences for Social Good (https://projects.illc.uva.nl/LSG/). You will either join one of the labs within this research programme or initiate your own lab, ideally with strong connections to one or more other labs within the programme. More broadly, you will be a member of the Institute for Logic, Language, and Computation, one of the five research schools of the Amsterdam Institute for Humanities Research at the Faculty of Humanities.
You will provide education in a dynamic context with ample opportunities for the development of innovative teaching methods. You will teach in some of our undergraduate and graduate programme, such as the BSc Cognition, Language and Communication, BA Linguistics, MA General Linguistics, RMA Linguistics and Communication, MSc Logic, RMA Brain and Cognitive Sciences, and the MSc Artificial Intelligence.