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Understanding the predictions made by deep learning models remains a central challenge, especially in high-stakes applications. A promising approach is to equip models with the ability to answer counterfactual questions -- hypothetical…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-10-28 Inwoo Hwang , Yushu Pan , Elias Bareinboim

Large language models (LLMs) are trained on enormous amounts of data and encode knowledge in their parameters. We propose a pipeline to elicit causal relationships from LLMs. Specifically, (i) we sample many documents from LLMs on a given…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-03-05 Takashi Kameyama , Masahiro Kato , Yasuko Hio , Yasushi Takano , Naoto Minakawa

The causal capabilities of large language models (LLMs) are a matter of significant debate, with critical implications for the use of LLMs in societally impactful domains such as medicine, science, law, and policy. We conduct a "behavorial"…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2024-08-21 Emre Kıcıman , Robert Ness , Amit Sharma , Chenhao Tan

In causal inference, generalization capability refers to the ability to conduct causal inference methods on new data to estimate the causal-effect between unknown phenomenon, which is crucial for expanding the boundaries of knowledge.…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2024-10-16 Chen Wang , Dongming Zhao , Bo Wang , Ruifang He , Yuexian Hou

Causal reasoning and compositional reasoning are two core aspirations in AI. Measuring the extent of these behaviors requires principled evaluation methods. We explore a unified perspective that considers both behaviors simultaneously,…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2025-06-11 Jacqueline R. M. A. Maasch , Alihan Hüyük , Xinnuo Xu , Aditya V. Nori , Javier Gonzalez

Modern Artificial Intelligence achieves remarkable predictive power by optimizing statistical risk functionals over vast corpora. Yet a gap separates this from genuine intelligence: the inability to distinguish correlation from causation.…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2026-05-26 Ernest Fokoué

Reward modelling from preference data is a crucial step in aligning large language models (LLMs) with human values, requiring robust generalisation to novel prompt-response pairs. In this work, we propose to frame this problem in a causal…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2026-05-12 Katarzyna Kobalczyk , Mihaela van der Schaar

This paper introduces a causal attribution model to enhance the interpretability of large language models (LLMs) and improve their causal reasoning abilities via precise fine-tuning. Despite LLMs' proficiency in diverse tasks, their…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2026-05-22 Hengrui Cai , Shengjie Liu , Rui Song

Interpretability research takes counterfactual theories of causality for granted. Most causal methods rely on counterfactual interventions to inputs or the activations of particular model components, followed by observations of the change…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-07-08 Aaron Mueller

Causal reasoning is a cornerstone of how humans interpret the world. To model and reason about causality, causal graphs offer a concise yet effective solution. Given the impressive advancements in language models, a crucial question arises:…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2024-06-25 Sirui Chen , Mengying Xu , Kun Wang , Xingyu Zeng , Rui Zhao , Shengjie Zhao , Chaochao Lu

Causal representation learning (CRL) offers the promise of uncovering the underlying causal model by which observed data was generated, but the practical applicability of existing methods remains limited by the strong assumptions required…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-01-30 Yuhang Liu , Zhen Zhang , Dong Gong , Erdun Gao , Biwei Huang , Mingming Gong , Anton van den Hengel , Kun Zhang , Javen Qinfeng Shi

Mechanistic interpretability identifies internal circuits responsible for model behaviors, yet translating these findings into human-understandable explanations remains an open problem. We present a pipeline that bridges circuit-level…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2026-03-12 Ajay Pravin Mahale

Some argue scale is all what is needed to achieve AI, covering even causal models. We make it clear that large language models (LLMs) cannot be causal and give reason onto why sometimes we might feel otherwise. To this end, we define and…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2023-08-28 Matej Zečević , Moritz Willig , Devendra Singh Dhami , Kristian Kersting

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…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2024-06-12 Kai-Hendrik Cohrs , Gherardo Varando , Emiliano Diaz , Vasileios Sitokonstantinou , Gustau Camps-Valls

LLM-based social simulations can generate believable community interactions, enabling ``policy wind tunnels'' where governance interventions are tested before deployment. But believability is not causality. Claims like ``intervention $A$…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2026-04-17 Agam Goyal , Yian Wang , Eshwar Chandrasekharan , Hari Sundaram

Causal reasoning and discovery, two fundamental tasks of causal analysis, often face challenges in applications due to the complexity, noisiness, and high-dimensionality of real-world data. Despite recent progress in identifying latent…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-11-18 Dingling Yao , Shimeng Huang , Riccardo Cadei , Kun Zhang , Francesco Locatello

Recent claims of strong performance by Large Language Models (LLMs) on causal discovery are undermined by a key flaw: many evaluations rely on benchmarks likely included in pretraining corpora. Thus, apparent success suggests that LLM-only…

With the rise of Large Language Models(LLMs), it has become crucial to understand their capabilities and limitations in deciphering and explaining the complex web of causal relationships that language entails. Current methods use either…

Pearl's causal hierarchy has garnered sustained attention as a foundational lens for formulating and understanding causal questions, and has been extensively discussed within the framework of structural causal models. In this paper, we…

Other Statistics · Statistics 2026-01-29 Peng Wu , Linbo Wang

With the growing popularity of general-purpose Large Language Models (LLMs), comes a need for more global explanations of model behaviors. Concept-based explanations arise as a promising avenue for explaining high-level patterns learned by…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2024-10-07 Meng Li , Haoran Jin , Ruixuan Huang , Zhihao Xu , Defu Lian , Zijia Lin , Di Zhang , Xiting Wang