*** One year post-doctora position on grounded language learning,
    Paris, France ***


In the framework of the ERA-NET Atlantis project, LATTICE offers a one
year post-doctoral position aiming at developing original experiments
on grounded language learning.

A major challenge for natural language processing is connecting
language with the outer world. What is done naturally and
intuitionally by children remains a challenge for artificial
systems. For example, autonomous agents must be able to learn how to
refer to objects, and even execute specific tasks like taking or
moving objects in a specific environment (Yu and Siskind, 2013), but
this is still difficult to do in practice. Experiments are done in
simulated artificial worlds, of reduced complexity, and it is not
always clear how these experiments can scale up, or what the agents
has to know (initial, hand-crafted knowledge) to be able to learn
something from / about the environment. This domain has given birth to
interesting experiments recently, some of them reproducing to some
extent phenomena observed in infant language learning (Hill et
al. 2017).

The post-doctoral candidate is expected to develop original
experiments in this direction. We are especially interested in
experiments mimicking the acquisition of an initial vocabulary
(vocabulary growth and lexical burst) as well as simple constructions
(combination of two or several words). Applicants are free to suggest
the kind of experiments and environments they would like to use or
develop, but it is advisable to use existing, and open source datasets
as far as possible so as to allow comparison with other works. Please
note that the goal is to learn from an artificial setting, not to
learn directly from child language data.

Indicative References:

- H. Yu and J.M. Siskind, 2013. Grounded Language Learning from Video
  Described with Sentences, ACL, pp. 56-63.

- F. Hill, K.M. Hermann, P. Blunsom & S. Clark, 2017. Understanding
  grounded language learning
  agents. https://arxiv.org/pdf/1710.09867.pdf


* Skills

Strong programming experience
A good knowledge of machine learning and natural language processing
A PhD on a related topic would be of course a strong plus

* Conditions

The position is based in Montrouge / Paris. The post-doc is expected
to begin as soon as possible but the position will remain opened until
filled. Gross salary will be around 2500 euros per month.

* How to apply?

Send a CV with a list of publications, a summary of the PhD (or a link
to the PhD online) and a short research statement about this position
to thierry.poibeau@ens.fr. Feel free to ask details if necessary.