PhD excellence program in Paris-Saclay to unravel AI uncertainty

ongoing

Artificial intelligence is a pervasive and ubiquitous technology, with fast developments and ever-growing applicative horizons. While achieving outstanding results, estimating the decisions’ reliability is a critical and open problem with strategic outcomes: from estimating uncertainty in numerical simulations to harnessing system reactions in open environments. Uncertainties both in input data and model output should be handled to increase the confidence in AI applications : physics-based models, edge computing, data frugal approaches, interactions with humans, with many applications in energy, climate change adaptation, bioinformatics, engineering, fundamental and material science,… DeMythif.IA is an international doctoral training and career development program driven by UPSaclay, and its 19 research and industrial partners supported by thematic networks to enhance the scientific excellence and career development of 30 PhD fellows in Greater Paris area. The program focuses on 3 interdisciplinary scientific axes 1) handling uncertainties on data and model and quantifying uncertainties on the predictions, 2) managing explainability, so that the trained model outcome can be trusted and explained to a human, and 3) encouraging frugality, both in term of labelled data and energy for training, so that real-life applications (as opposed to proofs-of-concept) emerge. The fellows will benefit from world-class scientific programs, quality supervision and industrial secondments and also from personalized career development activities and transferable skills training (interpersonal, communication, digital, entrepreneurship, open science, gender, ethics). DeMythif.AI’s strength lies in its diversity permitting to fine-tune the content offered to the fellows from a professional perspective. It ultimately allows concretizing dynamic research collaborations and developing strong synergies around the academic and industrial community, opening new perspectives beyond the project.