Deceiving the Machine: developing a framework to formally quantify limitations of current machine learning techniques

Horizon Digital Economy Research Institute - Horizon Centre for Doctoral Training in My Life in Data at The University of Nottingham

PhD Studentship in partnership with the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL).

We are recruiting a PhD student to carry out research in partnership with the DSTL. Preferred candidates are expected to have a background in computer vision and machine learning, with an excellent first degree and an enthusiasm for transdisciplinary research.

Our digital identities will define the interfaces to the future services that we will use for entertainment, wellbeing, government, transport, energy, retail and finance. They will be constructed from our location history, our personal data, and digital records that capture who, and where, we are and the histories of our digital, and increasingly our physical and social, interactions.

Our aim is to train people to work in transdisciplinary teams to address the challenge of digital identity and personal data for the 21st century, and to be ready to become future leaders in industry, the third sector and academia.

The focus of this PhD is “Deceiving the Machine”
The goal will be to develop a framework or set of metrics/methods that could formally quantify limitations of current machine learning techniques. Ideally these techniques would include deep learning methods. Points to investigate would be: where do they work well? Where don’t they? What is their sensitivity to changes in the input (i.e. how easily can they be fooled by physical or digital camouflage)? Are there methods of camouflage/transformation that are able to fool certain machine learning algorithms but not others?

The students will benefit from:
• A fully-funded four-year PhD programme that integrates a leading-edge research project with research training in transdisciplinary skills.
• At least one internship with our partner.
• An enhanced stipend of £16,800 per annum as well as a personal laptop and additional resources to support your study.
• A cohort of high achieving PhD researchers.
• A world class research environment with a proven track record of successful Horizon CDT graduates.

We have funding for UK/Home and EU students, and the minimum entry requirement is a 2.1 undergraduate degree and English language IELTS average score of 6.5 with no less than 6.0 in any element.

Application forms are downloadable from http://cdt.horizon.ac.uk/apply/current-opportunities and should be returned by email with a detailed CV, transcript, references and a statement of research interests (personal statement) [Email Address Removed].

Please quote ref HORIZON3 DSTL, Closing date: 30th April 2018, Interview date: 23rd May 2018.