PhD scholarship on the history of artificial intelligence now available

Applications are invited for a 40-month PhD studentship on the history of artificial intelligence in Britain.

This White Rose College of the Arts and Humanities (WRoCAH) funded PhD project on “Interdisciplinary Research Cultures in Mid-20th Century British Science: The Working Worlds of AI Pioneer Donald Michie (1923-2007),” is a collaboration between the Leeds Centre for History & Philosophy of Science and the British Library.

Michie -- a code-breaker, geneticist, computer scientist and Communist -- was one of the founding figures in Britain of arguably the most transformative science of recent times: artificial intelligence (AI). Drawing on little-studied archival materials at the British Library (including still-unexamined born-digital material) as well as oral history interviews that the sucessful student will conduct, this project will use the twin careers of Michie and artificial intelligence to explore the connections between academia, industry and politics which made mid-20th century Britain a hospitable setting for this extraordinary new "interdiscipline."

The project will be co-led by Professor Gregory Radick (Leeds) and Mr Jonathan Pledge (British Library). The student will be based in the Leeds Centre for History and Philosophy of Science.

For further information and how to apply, please see our webpage or email Professor Gregory Radick.

The application deadline is Wednesday 8 March at 5pm.