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Pearl's ladder of causation (in maths and AI research) already tells you that causation cannot only be inferred from data alone. If you only have data, then you
by youoy 2y ago
Pearl's ladder of causation (in maths and AI research) already tells you that causation cannot only be inferred from data alone. If you only have data, then you cannot generally go beyond correlations. This can be solved either by humans hardcoding their knowledge into a model that extracts causation based on that knowledge, of by giving a machine the ability to perform their own experiments. This is because there are some correlations (A - B) that are generated by causation (A -> B) whose direction of the arrow cannot be decided with data alone.
- whyowhy3484939 2y agoThat's a significant observation by professor Pearl and I don't wish to belittle his contributions, which are significant, but I do wish to stress that it is the 18th century we need to thank for "causation cannot only be inferred from data alone" because I feel we are, to our detriment, unfairly dismissive of past thinkers.
- youoy 2y agoI don't think we are being dismissive, it's just that a mathematical theory is more convincing than a philosophical one in terms of what can and cannot be achieved with data.
- whyowhy3484939 2y agoFair enough. I can't say I'm familiar enough with professor Pearl's work to argue productively, but I do thank you for pointing this out. This is most interesting.