Postdoctoral Researcher Position (2 years) Project: Autotelic Creative Artificial Intelligence (ACAI)
About this role
Postdoctoral Researcher Position (2 years)
Project: Autotelic Creative Artificial Intelligence (ACAI)
Supervisor & team:
Prof. Christian Guckelsberger (Asst. Prof. for Creative Technologies, School of Science)
Team: Autotelic Interaction Research (AIR) group at Aalto University: www.autotelic.science
The project is supported by collaborators and mobility partners Prof. Tom Froese (OIST), Prof. Jon McCormack (Monash University) and Prof. Takashi Ikegami (University of Tokyo).
Application deadline & starting date:
Please submit your application by Friday, 11th Sep 2026. Starting date: we can offer flexibility weighed by the candidate's qualification, but a suitable candidate could also start right away.
The project:
We are advertising a fully paid, 2-year postdoctoral researcher position at Aalto University's School of Science, Department of Computer Science, to work on the project "Autotelic Creative Artificial Intelligence" (ACAI).
Critical at its core, the ACAI project seeks to identify alternative and sustainable paths to "mainstream" creative AI. Rather than optimizing systems to replicate established human aesthetics or processes, we investigate the conditions under which AI might operate as a genuinely creative agent. Amongst other questions, we ask: Can AI be creative in its own right, rather than emulating human creativity? Can such AI be autotelic , i.e., define its own goals and methods of inquiry? What forms of autotelic creativity exist in nature, and might we miss them given our situatedness?
To further these questions, we will rely on the candidate to study the foundations of creativity in AI and living beings, including e.g. agency, motivation/teleology and value grounding.
Crucially, this project seeks to combine such theoretic research with the critical artistic practice of a media art PhD researcher. Through regular interaction and individual exploration, the theoretical research will inspire the artistic practice to articulate our findings