arXiv AI

Identification of Probabilities of Causation: from Recursive to Closed-Form Bounds

arXiv:2505. 15274v4 Announce Type: replace Abstract: Probabilities of causation (PoCs) are fundamental quantities for counterfactual analysis and personalized decision making.

arXiv AI
Aug 26

Partial Identification under Causal Orders by Linear Programming

The paper presents a method for partially identifying counterfactual queries without requiring a fully specified causal graph. By exploiting the topological ordering implied by the query itself, the authors transform the identification problem into a linear programming task, enabling bounds on arbitrary counterfactual and nested counterfactual queries. They demonstrate the tightness of these bounds and illustrate the approach on several case studies, showing its usefulness even when causal knowledge is incomplete.

By Eric Rossetto, Alessandro Antonucci
arXiv AI
Aug 24

Foundation Models for Partial Causal Identification

The paper introduces causal foundation models that can bound the effects of interventions and counterfactuals using only observational data. It defines a canonical prior with full support over structural causal models with discrete observables, enabling the translation of counterfactual bounding into learning distributions over functions that map data and structural assumptions to causal queries. This approach extends causal foundational modelling to partially-identifiable causal effects, where unobserved confounding leads to multiple compatible values for the effect.

By Alexis Bellot, Anish Dhir
arXiv AI
Jul 21

A Causal Markov Condition for Value

arXiv:2607. 16717v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: This paper proposes a causal independence principle for value -- the value Causal Markov Condition (v-CMC) -- and develops the conceptual and mathematical foundations of a "causal value theory" linking causality and utility.

By Olav Benjamin Vassend
arXiv AI
Sep 10

Optimal Experiments for Partial Causal Effect Identification

The paper tackles selecting a cost‑constrained set of experiments that most effectively tighten bounds on a partially identifiable causal query. It formalizes this as the NP‑hard max‑potency problem, introduces efficient graphical pruning rules to reduce the search space, and demonstrates the approach on synthetic graphs and real NHANES data to estimate the effect of physical activity on diabetes.

By Tobias Maringgele, Jalal Etesami
arXiv Machine Learning
Sep 11

The observational partial order of causal structures with latent variables

The paper studies observational dominance among causal structures with latent variables, defining one structure as dominating another if it can realize all distributions that the other can over the same visible variables. It provides a full characterization of this dominance partial order for three visible variables and a partial one for four, and shows that many equivalence classes are distinguished by nontrivial inequality constraints similar to Bell or instrumental inequalities. The authors also demonstrate that constraint‑based causal discovery algorithms relying only on conditional independence are much less powerful than those incorporating nested Markov and inequality constraints.

By Marina Maciel Ansanelli, Elie Wolfe, Robert W. Spekkens
Hugging Face Trending Papers
Jun 29

Sample-Efficient Learning of Probabilistic Causes for Reachability in Markov Decision Processes with Probabilistic Guarantees

Probabilistic model checking for Markov decision processes (MDPs) provides quantitative guarantees, but often offers limited insight into why undesired outcomes occur. Probability-raising (PR) causality addresses this by identifying states whose visitation increases the probability of reaching designated states.

arXiv AI
Sep 4

A Computationally Feasible Framework for Causal Probabilistic Explanation

The paper introduces Probabilistic Causal Impact (PCI), a framework that blends actual causality (AC) with Pearl’s probability of necessity and sufficiency to provide tractable, causally grounded explanations. PCI reframes explainability as an estimation problem on a probabilistic causal model, enabling efficient approximation via Monte Carlo sampling. The authors evaluate PCI on synthetic and real-world data, demonstrating consistency with AC, scalability, and applicability to complex continuous systems and large-scale causal machine learning models.

By Rafal Urbaniak, Sam Witty, Daniel Waxman, Andy Zane, Poorva Garg, Emily Bunnapradist, Sankaran Vaidyanathan, Jack Feser, Drew Lehe, Eli Bingham
arXiv Machine Learning
Jun 19

Unsupervised Causal Abstractions Discovery

arXiv:2606. 19594v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Causal abstractions formalize when a high-level structural causal model (SCM) captures the interventional behavior of a lower-level SCM.

By Th\'eo Saulus, Simon Lacoste-Julien, Dhanya Sridhar