Project Overview

We are seeking a Postdoctoral Associate, to systematically organize knowledge for a project on “Designing human-AI teams.” The project is part of a five-year research program on "Mens, Manus and Machina—How AI Empowers People, Institutions and Cities in Singapore (M3S)."

Successful applicants for this position will have the opportunity to work on a cutting-edge, interdisciplinary project that aims to dramatically rethink how people and AI systems will work together in the future. To do this, the project seeks to build a strong scientific foundation for how AI can augment (as opposed to replace) humans.

An important goal of the project is to develop a rich ontology of activities that can be performed by human-AI teams. Like categorizing the plants and animals on a little-explored continent, the work will involve cataloging many (a) activities and (b) possible human-computer processes for performing these activities.

To do this, we will develop knowledge graphs that include (1) descriptions of many different types of activities and processes, and (2) classifications of these descriptions into multi-dimensional taxonomies that range from very general types of activities to very specific ones.

These knowledge graphs will then be used to automatically generate promising ways of combining humans and AI systems to perform different tasks. In the long run, we believe these tools will help rapidly (a) identify use cases for new AI capabilities, (b) specify effective processes and task allocations to humans and computers in a given situation, and (c) identify innovative ways to combine people and AI to solve business and societal problems.

The T6 team is led by distinguished scholars, including Profs. Thomas Malone, Charles Fine, Armando Solar-Lezama, Jinhua Zhao, and Abdullah Almaatouq from MIT; Prof. Marcelo Ang from the National University of Singapore; and will be assisted by Prof. Archan Misra from Singapore Management University.

Responsibilities

• Developing descriptions of current or potential activities and processes based on various sources such as: interviews, field studies, literature reviews, and generative AI systems (such as ChatGPT).
• Making editorial decisions about what content from these sources to include in the knowledge graphs and how to present and organize this knowledge clearly.
• Collaborate with the project team and other researchers to design, implement, and evaluate research projects.
• Perform other duties as needed.
• Publish research results in top-tier conferences and journals, and disseminate research findings through presentations and other means.
• Participate in the mentorship and training of graduate and undergraduate students at MIT and in Singapore.
• Assist in grant writing, project management, and other administrative duties related to research activities.

Requirements

-Ph.D. in Social Science (such as Psychology, Sociology, Political Science, and Economics), Computer Science (e.g., with a focus on Human-Computer Interaction), Management, Organizational Behavior, Philosophy, Journalism, or other related fields by the start of the appointment.

-Ability to systematically organize knowledge in structured ways that are logical, comprehensive, understandable, and conceptually elegant.

-Skilled in software development, good writing ability, statistical analysis, and social science methodologies such as experimental design or ethnographic observation.

-Strong publication record in top-tier conferences and journals.

-Familiarity with statistical data analysis tools and techniques.

-Excellent communication and collaboration skills.

Interested applicants are invited to send in their full CV/resume, cover letter and list of three references (to include reference names and contact information). We regret that only shortlisted candidates will be notified.