English

Omitted Labels Induce Nontransitive Paradoxes in Causality

Machine Learning 2025-05-02 v4 Artificial Intelligence Information Theory Social and Information Networks math.IT Methodology

Abstract

We explore "omitted label contexts," in which training data is limited to a subset of the possible labels. This setting is standard among specialized human experts or specific, focused studies. By studying Simpson's paradox, we observe that ``correct'' adjustments sometimes require non-exchangeable treatment and control groups. A generalization of Simpson's paradox leads us to study networks of conclusions drawn from different contexts, within which a paradox of nontransitivity arises. We prove that the space of possible nontransitive structures in these networks exactly corresponds to structures that form from aggregating ranked-choice votes.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2311.06840,
  title  = {Omitted Labels Induce Nontransitive Paradoxes in Causality},
  author = {Bijan Mazaheri and Siddharth Jain and Matthew Cook and Jehoshua Bruck},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2311.06840},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

Accepted to appear in CLeaR 2025

R2 v1 2026-06-28T13:18:32.386Z