Related papers: Formally Justifying MDL-based Inference of Cause a…
We consider the fundamental problem of inferring the causal direction between two univariate numeric random variables $X$ and $Y$ from observational data. The two-variable case is especially difficult to solve since it is not possible to…
The algorithmic Markov condition states that the most likely causal direction between two random variables X and Y can be identified as that direction with the lowest Kolmogorov complexity. Due to the halting problem, however, this notion…
Inferring the causal structure that links n observables is usually based upon detecting statistical dependences and choosing simple graphs that make the joint measure Markovian. Here we argue why causal inference is also possible when only…
In a previous paper [Pearl and Verma, 1991] we presented an algorithm for extracting causal influences from independence information, where a causal influence was defined as the existence of a directed arc in all minimal causal models…
We postulate a principle stating that the initial condition of a physical system is typically algorithmically independent of the dynamical law. We argue that this links thermodynamics and causal inference. On the one hand, it entails…
Recent developments have linked causal inference with Algorithmic Information Theory, and methods have been developed that utilize Conditional Kolmogorov Complexity to determine causation between two random variables. We present a method…
Inferring the potential consequences of an unobserved event is a fundamental scientific question. To this end, Pearl's celebrated do-calculus provides a set of inference rules to derive an interventional probability from an observational…
Given data over variables $(X_1,...,X_m, Y)$ we consider the problem of finding out whether $X$ jointly causes $Y$ or whether they are all confounded by an unobserved latent variable $Z$. To do so, we take an information-theoretic approach…
The causal Markov condition (CMC) is a postulate that links observations to causality. It describes the conditional independences among the observations that are entailed by a causal hypothesis in terms of a directed acyclic graph. In the…
Causality is essential for understanding complex systems, such as the economy, the brain, and the climate. Constructing causal graphs often relies on either data-driven or expert-driven approaches, both fraught with challenges. The former…
The estimation of causal effects with observational data continues to be a very active research area. In recent years, researchers have developed new frameworks which use machine learning to relax classical assumptions necessary for the…
Heckerman (1993) defined causal independence in terms of a set of temporal conditional independence statements. These statements formalized certain types of causal interaction where (1) the effect is independent of the order that causes are…
How does a cause lead to an effect, and which intermediate causal steps explain their connection? This work scrutinizes the mechanistic causal reasoning capabilities of large language models (LLMs) to answer these questions through the task…
Approaches to bivariate causal discovery based on the minimum description length (MDL) principle approximate the (uncomputable) Kolmogorov complexity of the models in each causal direction, selecting the one with the lower total complexity.…
As systems are getting more autonomous with the development of artificial intelligence, it is important to discover the causal knowledge from observational sensory inputs. By encoding a series of cause-effect relations between events,…
Causal inference methods based on conditional independence construct Markov equivalent graphs, and cannot be applied to bivariate cases. The approaches based on independence of cause and mechanism state, on the contrary, that causal…
We propose a machine-learning tool that yields causal inference on text in randomized trials. Based on a simple econometric framework in which text may capture outcomes of interest, our procedure addresses three questions: First, is the…
This paper presents a simple decidable logic of functional dependence LFD, based on an extension of classical propositional logic with dependence atoms plus dependence quantifiers treated as modalities, within the setting of generalized…
This is an up-to-date introduction to and overview of the Minimum Description Length (MDL) Principle, a theory of inductive inference that can be applied to general problems in statistics, machine learning and pattern recognition. While MDL…
Causal inference using observational data is challenging, especially in the bivariate case. Through the minimum description length principle, we link the postulate of independence between the generating mechanisms of the cause and of the…