Towards Epistemically Sound Assurance

Note: Potential applicants should realize this opportunity is entirely unrelated to NASA's space exploration efforts. If you're looking for a project related to space flight (human or robotic), this project is not for you; please do not apply for it.

The goal of this opportunity is to attack directly the single most fundamental question of safety engineering: what is necessary to fully justify belief in the efficacy, completeness, and accuracy of the prospective analysis of the in-use safety of systems before they are built. Ad hoc, ungrounded, pragmatic answers to the question have sufficed in the past, but the likelihood is tiny that they will continue to suffice in the future as systems become increasingly automated, non-deterministic, and unpredictable. Thus, the potential benefits of such systems may be unrealized because the harms caused by them are too great. The creative and publicly exciting research being done by NASA and others in probabilistic automation*, model error reduction*, pilotless vehicles, and the like will come to naught if we are unable to have sufficient reasons to believe safe systems can be built. The most plausible way forward seems to be through employing methods based on explicit, well-formed, compelling, but mostly informal arguments. See https://bit.ly/arg83 for links to papers about the work we are doing. The specific project on which a chosen intern will work will be jointly determined by discussions between the intern and mentor. A wide variety of general and specific options will be available. As a mentor, if the decision were in mine to make, I would happily consider virtual internships. Sadly, at the time I'm writing this project description, the decision is not mine, and virtual internships are verboten.

The optimal student to assist in the research will either (a) have or be pursuing an undergraduate degree in philosophy (or a related discipline) and be pursuing (or thinking about pursuing) an MS/PhD in computer science, systems engineering, computer engineering, or applied mathematics; or (b) have or be pursuing a BS (perhaps also with an MS) in computer science, systems engineering, computer engineering, or applied mathematics and be (or be thinking about) pursuing a PhD in philosophy (or a related discipline). At a minimum, the student should have studied informal reasoning and epistemology, or be willing to do so before beginning the internship.

* These accurate, technically and philosophically defensible terms are used instead of other common (or not-common) terms.

Reminder: Potential applicants should realize this opportunity is entirely unrelated to NASA's space exploration efforts. If you're looking for a project related to space flight (human or robotic), this project is not for you; please do not apply for it.

**Eligible Applicants:** Student
**Academic Level:** Undergraduate Freshman, Undergraduate Sophomore, Undergraduate Junior, Undergraduate Senior, Graduate Master's, Graduate Doctoral, Post Doctoral
**Activity Type:** In-person
**Citizenship:** US Citizen Only
**Type:** Internships