Machine Learning is a huge field. You need to first determine you area of interest. For example: NLP, computer vision, Robotics, Predictive Analysis etc.
And then search for subdomains e.g. in computer vision we have Object detection, Object Localization, Image segmentation, etc.
Go through this article. I have explained some of the ML research areas and subdomains in detail.
The entire branch of Deep Learning Techniques come under Machine Learning. You can take any of the models of Deep neural Networks, CNN, RNN, GAN and work on it. Of course, you have to find one or more fields of application.
As far as DNN is concerned, i would like to suggest you to read the paper:
Ann LeCun, Yoshua Bengio & Geoffrey Hinton, Deep learning, Nature, 2015, doi:10.1038/nature14539
The topics you mentioned are actually huge topics, you need to clearly focus on the research topic of your PhD based on your personal interests and that of your supervisor's. Discuss this with your co-workers and supervisor. They are the best persons to answer this question. TBH, I believe you should not ask anyone else about the topic selection, because at the end of the day, you'll have to do the work. So, you must ask yourself what do you want to do.
I believe that one of the most important topics in the coming years will be the explainability of ML models. There are several efforts in this direction, but there is room for progress. Good luck!
After working in AI/ML for almost 40 years the most important topic us still validation of AI/ML algorithms. One reason is that the answers from many current algorithmic approaches being used today cannot be validated easily if at all. I agree with previous comments however, that you need to find a topic you are interested in.
Here is the less helpful answer. The existence of an "interesting" research topics implies someone else already
1. Found the gap, need, or resp. the symptomatic problem in the real world,
2. Analysed/diagnosed the possible underlying problems (causes), and potentially
3. Came up with a set of solutions or resp. solution concept (out of many solution ideas) to form a "field of research".
I would suggest you to watch Karl Ulrich's video about "Find the Gap" https://www.coursera.org/lecture/design/1-4-find-the-gap-3K4kS
Yes, this is about Product Design and not tailored to ML/AI. However, all MINT research is connected to product development (base research → applied research → technology development → product development).
A ML/AI PhD is likely to be about step 3, i.e. tinkering with some sort (sub-)solution with the potential of becoming an incremental innovation (or less likely radical ... except snake oil salesmen claim otherwise ...). You would still need to sell your solution (or technology) to the audience, scientific community, your readers, your funding organization, future employers, ... i.e. tell the audience what underlying problems you are solving (step 2) and how these problems are rooted in the real world out there (step 1).
Good luck with finding a meaningful and personally interesting topic, that fits to your supervisors' research profile.