English
Related papers

Related papers: Explanatory causal effects for model agnostic expl…

200 papers

This paper discusses the problem of causal query in observational data with hidden variables, with the aim of seeking the change of an outcome when "manipulating" a variable while given a set of plausible confounding variables which affect…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2020-11-25 Debo Cheng , Jiuyong Li , Lin Liu , Jixue Liu , Kui Yu , Thuc Duy Le

Understanding how much each variable contributes to an outcome is a central question across disciplines. A causal view of explainability is favorable for its ability in uncovering underlying mechanisms and generalizing to new contexts.…

Methodology · Statistics 2026-03-09 Weihan Zhang , Zijun Gao

Shapley values have become one of the go-to methods to explain complex models to end-users. They provide a model agnostic post-hoc explanation with foundations in game theory: what is the worth of a player (in machine learning, a feature…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-06-21 Joran Michiels , Maarten De Vos , Johan Suykens

Causal evidence is needed to act and it is often enough for the evidence to point towards a direction of the effect of an action. For example, policymakers might be interested in estimating the effect of slightly increasing taxes on private…

Methodology · Statistics 2020-08-11 Dominik Rothenhäusler , Bin Yu

The standard approach to answering an identifiable causal-effect query (e.g., $P(Y|do(X)$) when given a causal diagram and observational data is to first generate an estimand, or probabilistic expression over the observable variables, which…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2024-08-28 Anna Raichev , Alexander Ihler , Jin Tian , Rina Dechter

Despite the excelling performance of machine learning models, understanding their decisions remains a long-standing goal. Although commonly used attribution methods from explainable AI attempt to address this issue, they typically rely on…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-11-20 Juan Miguel Lopez Alcaraz , Nils Strodthoff

The causal effect of an intervention (treatment/exposure) on an outcome can be estimated by: i) specifying knowledge about the data-generating process; ii) assessing under what assumptions a target quantity, such as for example a causal…

Methodology · Statistics 2021-03-05 Michael Schomaker

To draw scientifically meaningful conclusions and build reliable models of quantitative phenomena, cause and effect must be taken into consideration (either implicitly or explicitly). This is particularly challenging when the measurements…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-12-11 Max A. Little , Reham Badawy

In high dimensional analysis, effects of explanatory variables on responses sometimes rely on certain exposure variables, such as time or environmental factors. In this paper, to characterize the importance of each predictor, we utilize its…

Methodology · Statistics 2018-04-11 Yeqing Zhou , Jingyuan Liu , Zhihui Hao , Liping Zhu

Generating explanations for reinforcement learning (RL) is challenging as actions may produce long-term effects on the future. In this paper, we develop a novel framework for explainable RL by learning a causal world model without prior…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-01-19 Zhongwei Yu , Jingqing Ruan , Dengpeng Xing

Discovering causal relations is fundamental to reasoning and intelligence. In particular, observational causal discovery algorithms estimate the cause-effect relation between two random entities $X$ and $Y$, given $n$ samples from $P(X,Y)$.…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2017-02-24 Mateo Rojas-Carulla , Marco Baroni , David Lopez-Paz

Causal inference is a critical research topic across many domains, such as statistics, computer science, education, public policy and economics, for decades. Nowadays, estimating causal effect from observational data has become an appealing…

Methodology · Statistics 2020-02-10 Liuyi Yao , Zhixuan Chu , Sheng Li , Yaliang Li , Jing Gao , Aidong Zhang

Conventional methods in causal effect inferencetypically rely on specifying a valid set of control variables. When this set is unknown or misspecified, inferences will be erroneous. We propose a method for inferring average causal effects…

Methodology · Statistics 2021-06-14 Ludvig Hult , Dave Zachariah

Causal approaches to post-hoc explainability for black-box prediction models (e.g., deep neural networks trained on image pixel data) have become increasingly popular. However, existing approaches have two important shortcomings: (i) the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-08-12 Numair Sani , Daniel Malinsky , Ilya Shpitser

Causal effect estimation is a critical task in statistical learning that aims to find the causal effect on subjects by identifying causal links between a number of predictor (or, explanatory) variables and the outcome of a treatment. In a…

Methodology · Statistics 2024-11-26 Tathagata Basu , Matthias C. M. Troffaes

We show that it is possible to understand and identify a decision maker's subjective causal judgements by observing her preferences over interventions. Following Pearl [2000], we represent causality using causal models (also called…

Theoretical Economics · Economics 2024-01-23 Joseph Y. Halpern , Evan Piermont

Estimating causal effects from observational data requires identifying valid adjustment sets. This task is especially challenging in realistic settings where latent confounding and feedback loops are present. Existing approaches typically…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-05-08 Ana Leticia Garcez Vicente , Gijs van Seeventer , Saber Salehkaleybar

This paper deals with the problem of evaluating the causal effect using observational data in the presence of an unobserved exposure/ outcome variable, when cause-effect relationships between variables can be described as a directed acyclic…

Methodology · Statistics 2012-06-18 Manabu Kuroki , Zhihong Cai

Causal models communicate our assumptions about causes and effects in real-world phe- nomena. Often the interest lies in the identification of the effect of an action which means deriving an expression from the observed probability…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2018-06-20 Santtu Tikka , Juha Karvanen

In many fields of scientific research and real-world applications, unbiased estimation of causal effects from non-experimental data is crucial for understanding the mechanism underlying the data and for decision-making on effective…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2023-12-05 Debo Cheng , Jiuyong Li , Lin Liu , Jixue Liu , Thuc Duy Le