Fully funded EPSRC DTP PhD Scholarship: Computational Law of Autonomous Vehicles

Funding providers: EPSRC DTP Studentship

Subject areas: Computer Science

Project start date:

• 1 April 2023 (Enrolment open from mid–March)

Project description:

As discussed in The Law Commission’s report , the behaviour of autonomous vehicles (AVs) must abide by legislation and regulation such as the Highway Code. The challenges of computational law are to integrate: logical formalisations of the law, rules and actions in a programming language, and representations accessible in natural language. For example, how to manage violations of a law such as “Automobiles may not mount the pavement”? The overall aim is to build into an operating system the soft constraints of the law rather than have hard constraints or post hoc, external adjudication. In the last 3 years, there has been academic progress to integrate the law (The Law Commission’s consultation) with Artificial Intelligence (logic, normative and non-monotonic reasoning, computational linguistics, and logic programming in constraint Answer Set Programming). The PhD will progress state-of-the-art approaches and tools to carry out fundamental research on computational law for AVs on questions related to: vagueness/open-textured terms, conflicting information, exceptions, events/causation, and natural language translations of the logic or system reports. The work is relevant to government and service industries of insurance and legal. Links to and integration with data science will also be explored.

Eligibility

Candidates must normally hold an undergraduate degree at 2.1 level in Computer Science, Mathematics or a closely related discipline, or an appropriate master’s degree with a minimum overall grade at ‘Merit’ (or Non-UK equivalent as defined by Swansea University).

English Language requirements: If applicable – IELTS 6.5 overall (with at least 6.0 in each individual component) or Swansea recognised equivalent.

Due to funding restrictions, this scholarship is open to applicants eligible to pay tuition fees at the UK rate only, as defined by UKCISA regulations .