Job Description
A Doctoral Research Fellowship (SKO 1017) in Philosophy is available at the Department of Philosophy, Classics, history of Art and Ideas, University of Oslo.
The position is associated with the project “How do we understand machines that talk to us? Communication with large language models (LLMs)”, funded by the University of Oslo. The research fellow will be responsible for conducting theoretical and/or experimental research on the pragmatics of human-LLM interaction. The candidate is expected to present a research project closely connected to the main project.
More about the position
Many scholars rely on Gricean inferentialism (Grice 1957, 1967) as a fundamental aspect of human communication. According to this perspective, understanding verbal utterances, whether spoken or written, involves making inferences to determine the speaker’s intended meaning.
This process requires integrating contextual information and background knowledge with the syntactic structure obtained from parsing sentences. However, this raises a perplexing question: How can we effectively engage in conversational exchanges with individuals who lack communicative intentions, such as LLMs?
By combining both theoretical and experimental research, we aim to answer several key questions:
- Are our assumptions about how communication works correct for our interaction with language models?
- Is a unified account possible of the interpretation of human and LLM utterances or are they understood in fundamentally different ways?
- How do children perceive their interactions with LLMs?
The successful candidate will be based at the Department of Philosophy, Classics, History of Art and Ideas which has a lively environment for research into language, communication and the mind, with recent and current ERC and Research Council of Norway projects on experimental pragmatics and philosophy of language, including DEVCOM ( https://www.hf.uio.no/ifikk/english/research/projects/devcom/ ) and New Models of Knowledge Communication ( https://www.hf.uio.no/ifikk/english/research/projects/new-models-of-knowledge-communication/ ).
We also host the Pragmatics: Theory & Experiments research group (https://www.hf.uio.no/ifikk/english/research/groups/pragmatics/), which brings together researchers from across the University of Oslo and other universities across south east Norway, and we have close links with research groups in the linguistics and modern languages departments at the University of Oslo, including Clinical Linguistics and Language Acquisition (https://www.hf.uio.no/iln/english/research/groups/clinical-ling/ ) and Figurative Communication (https://www.hf.uio.no/ilos/english/research/groups/figurative-communication/ ).
The person appointed will be affiliated with the Faculty’s organized research training. The academic work is to result in a doctoral thesis that will be defended at the Faculty with a view to obtaining the degree of PhD. The successful candidate is expected to join the existing research milieu or network and contribute to its development. Read more about the doctoral degree.
The appointment is for a duration of 3 years. All PhD Candidates who submit their doctoral dissertation for assessment with a written recommendation from their supervisor within 3 years or 3 ½ years after the start of their PhD position, will be offered, respectively, a 12 or 6 month Completion Grant.
We offer
- Salary NOK 532 200 – 575 400 per annum depending on qualifications.
- A professionally stimulating working environment.
- Membership in the Norwegian Public Service Pension Fund
- Attractive welfare benefits
How to apply
The application must include:
- Application letter describing the applicant’s qualifications and motivation for the position
- Curriculum Vitae (with a list of education, positions, teaching experience, administrative experience and other qualifying activities, including a complete list of publications)
- Transcript of records of your Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees. Applicants with education from a foreign university must attach an explanation of their university’s grading system
- Documentation of Language requirements (if applicable)
- Project description, including a detailed progress plan for the project (2 – 3 pages). See Template for project descriptions)
Please note that all documents must be in English or a Scandinavian language.
Educational certificates, master theses and the like are not to be submitted with the application, but applicants may be asked to submit such information or works later.
The application with attachments must be submitted in our electronic recruiting system, jobbnorge.no.
Short-listed candidates will be invited for an interview.
Contact information
For questions about the position:
Associate Professor Ingrid Lossius Falkum – i.l.falkum@ifikk.uio.no
Senior Lecturer Nicholas Allott – n.e.allott@ilos.uio.no
For questions about how to apply:
HR Officer Anders Rykke – anders.rykke@hf.uio.no
Deadline: 1st November 2024
Place of service: Boks 1072 Blindern, 0316 Oslo
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