[iva] Two new positions in Social Dialogue for Conversational Agents at Inria Paris

[Justine Cassell]

Please share widely -
One position is postdoc - apply at 
<https://recrutement.inria.fr/classic/offre/show/2904>
One position is for an engineer - apply at 
<https://recrutement.inria.fr/classic/offre/show/2981>
--------------


TITLE: The role of rapport in human-conversational agent interaction: 
Modeling conversation to improve task performance in human-agent Interaction

CONTRACT TYPE : Fixed-term contract, renewable

CONTEXT
The objective of this project is to build embodied conversational agents 
(also known as ECAs, or virtual humans, or chatbots, or multimodal 
dialogue systems) that have the ability to engage their users in both 
social and task talk, where the social talk serves to improve task 
performance. In order to achieve this objective, we model human-human 
conversation, and integrate the models into ECAs, and then evaluate 
their performance.

Depending on the candidate's experience, she or he can be hired as 
postdoc, or as "jeune chercheur", which is a more advanced position.

ASSIGNMENT
The post doc chosen for this project should have a broad range of skills 
at the intersection of Cognitive Science and Computer Science. These 
skills should include several of the following:
- The analysis and synthesis of conversational behavior, as the team 
will be using human behavior as the basis for the implementation of a 
conversational agent.
- The construction of a corpus of data, as the team will be gathering a 
corpus of data on the social aspects of human-human conversation within 
a particular domain, and annotating
and analyzing those data.
- Development of computational models from the results of the data 
analysis as well as based on relevant prior literature, deep 
reinforcement learning, and other tools.
-The implementation of data-driven computational models of social 
phenomena into a functioning ECA (Embodied Conversational Agent) using 
machine learning approaches to dialogue systems, such as deep 
reinforcement learning and LSTM (among others).
- Evaluating research, as the team will evaluate whether the new models 
improve the performance of the ECA.

The candidate will be able to help decide the domain of the research, as 
applications of the work can be as varied as virtual personal assistants 
such as Alexa, Siri, and Google Now and intelligent tutoring systems.

For more information on the project, potential candidates should look at 
the SARA (Socially-Aware Robot Assistant) website at 
<http://articulab.hcii.cs.cmu.edu/projects/sara/> and read some of the 
publications
associated with the project, here 
<http://articulab.hcii.cs.cmu.edu/publications/>

MAIN ACTIVITIES
- Design and carry out experiments
- Analyze their results
- Implement modules in working socially-aware dialogue systems
- Write articles
- Present work in conferences

SKILLS AND COMPETENCES REQUIRED:

- Technical competencies: Solid competence in deep learning applied to 
dialogue systems, competence in statistics, avanced competence in 
programming in language such as Python and C++,
and use of tools such as Tensorflow and Pytorch.
- Languages: French, English
- Relational competences : ability to work in a team, and collaborate 
with others from different disciplines and backgrounds. Ability to 
manage other team members.

ADDITIONAL COMPETENCES:
Theoretical background in one or several of the following: cognitive 
science, linguistics, conversational analysis, sociolinguistics, social 
cognition, learning science.


INSTRUCTIONS TO APPLY

1)  letter of motivation describing the subject of the doctoral thesis, 
and how the candidate's past experience prepares him/her to work on this 
topic
CV
2) Abstract or summary of PhD dissertation
3) Names and contact information for 2 or 3 people who can write letters 
of recommendation (DO NOT ATTACH THE LETTERS - WE WILL REQUEST THE LETTERS)

NO APPLICATIONS OR PARTS OF APPLICATIONS WILL BE ACCEPTED BY EMAIL. ALL 
APPLICATIONS MUST BE SUBMITTED ONLINE ON THE INRIA WEBSITE.

For more information and to apply for the postdoc position, please see 
<https://recrutement.inria.fr/classic/offre/show/2904>
For more information and to apply for the engineer position, please see 
<https://recrutement.inria.fr/classic/offre/show/2981>




-- 
Justine Cassell
Chaire, PR[AI]RIE Center for Interdisciplinary Research on AI
Directrice de Recherche, Inria Paris
Steward, Information, Media & Entertainment Initiative, World Economic Forum

justine.cassell at inria.fr
www.justinecassell.com
http://articulab.hcii.cs.cmu.edu/

On leave from Carnegie Mellon University

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.uni-bielefeld.de/mailman2/unibi/public/iva-list/attachments/20201129/56170753/attachment.html>