We are happy to announce that the interdisciplinary project "Authority Presuppositions in Human-AI Communication" (APHIC) has been accepted. The project is led by Dr. Agnieszka Faleńska and Prof. Judith Tonhauser and is part of the "Human-Intelligent Systems Interaction and Teaming" (IRIS-HISIT) programme funded by the Ministry of Science, Research, and the Arts of Baden-Württemberg. The project investigates authority presuppositions—implicit assumptions that an AI system has the expertise to deliver high-stakes advice (e.g., medical or legal). The project aims to (1) develop a theoretically grounded taxonomy of authority presuppositions, and (2) design and evaluate conversational repair strategies that maintain trust and informativeness while ensuring user safety.
We invite applications for a Postdoctoral Researcher position in the project.
Position
Please submit one PDF containing:
- Duration: 20 months
- Earliest start: March 2026
- Salary: TV-L 13 (100%)
- Environment: The researcher will be embedded in the IRIS community and collaborate closely with colleagues at the Institute for Natural Language Processing and the Institute of Linguistics.
- PhD in computational linguistics or a related field
- Familiarity with key concepts in linguistics and formal pragmatics, e.g. presuppositions
- Experience in programming, prompting LLMs, and machine learning
- Excellent communication skills and enthusiasm for interdisciplinary research
- Proficiency in English (German not required)
Please submit one PDF containing:
- a brief motivation letter outlining your research interests,
- your CV with publication list
- contact information for one to two references.
The University of Stuttgart would like to increase the proportion of women in the scientific field and is therefore particularly interested in applications from women. Severely disabled persons are given priority in the case of equal suitability.
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