PhD : Approche frugale en Sémantique Formelle pour la compréhension des conversation

Job title:

PhD : Approche frugale en Sémantique Formelle pour la compréhension des conversation

Company:

Orange

Job description

about the roleYour role is to conduct a PhD thesis on: “Approach in Formal Semantics for Conversation Understanding.”Global Context and Problematic of the Subject
In NLP, there is a representation of the meaning of sentences in the form of a graph (Abstract Meaning Representation, AMR) that allows for the handling of various application tasks using small language models (
1B, such as FlanT5 with between 256M and 1.2B parameters). For dialogue, this representation is not yet utilized, except for robot commands.Scientific Objective – Results and Challenges to Overcome
By illustrating the connection with the global context and the problematic, the thesis aims to directly describe what it addresses: “The objective of the thesis is to…”
The objective of the thesis is to adapt generic approaches of formal semantic analysis to conversation understanding. In addition to not requiring specific training for each application, their advantage is their low computational resource requirements.The main challenges to overcome (scientific or technical) are:

• Understanding the sequence of exchanges (dialogues)
• Managing turn-taking
• Resolving coreferences

Among the recommended approaches to overcome these challenges are:

• Using formal semantics in the form of directed graphs
• Machine Learning / Deep Learning
• Manipulating semantic graphs

Finally, the main expected outcomes (besides publications and manuscript writing) are:

• Trained language models and tools for dialogue
• Evaluation corpus
• Evaluation

about youWe are looking for a person who is interested in language, its structures, and its ambiguities:Required Skills (scientific and technical) and Personal Qualities for the Position

• Knowledge in linguistics, particularly formal semantics
• Understanding of graph theory
• Experience with deep learning and language models
• Development tools:

• Python, Pytorch
• Linux
• LaTeX

Required Education

• completed Master in NLP/Computational Linguistics/Computer Science

Desired Experience

• Internships involving linguistic data and language structures

additional informationThis PhD thesis innovatively combines language models (LLM, SLM) with approaches based on more formal structures, particularly formal semantics. One goal is also to find frugal solutions by working with smaller Language Models (LM) and linguistic structures.departmentThe ambition of the Innovation Division is to advance Orange’s innovation and strengthen its technological leadership by mobilizing our research capabilities to foster responsible innovation that serves humanity, inform the Group’s long-term strategic choices, and influence the global digital ecosystem.We train experts in today’s and tomorrow’s technologies and ensure continuous improvement in the performance of our services and our efficiency. The Innovation division brings together 6,000 employees dedicated to research and innovation worldwide, including 740 researchers. With a global vision and a diverse range of profiles (researchers, engineers, designers, developers, data scientists, sociologists, graphic designers, marketers, cybersecurity experts, etc.), the men and women of Innovation are attentive to and serve the countries, regions, and business units to make Orange a trusted multi-service operator.Within Innovation, you will be integrated into a cutting-edge research team specializing in Natural Language Processing and Artificial Intelligence. You will be part of a project that works with LLMs and frugal LMs, as well as approaches in Formal Semantics (notably Abstract Meaning Representation, AMR) in research projects and short-term anticipation projects.contractThesis

Expected salary

Location

Lannion, Côtes-d’Armor

Job date

Sat, 22 Mar 2025 23:44:52 GMT

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