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Causality

TagLast edit: 7 Feb 2021 15:11 UTC by Yoav Ravid

Causality is the intuitive notion that some events happening “result” in other events happening. What’s going on with that? What does it mean for A to cause B? How do we figure out the causal relationship between things?

See also

External links

Causal Di­a­grams and Causal Models

Eliezer Yudkowsky12 Oct 2012 21:49 UTC
153 points
297 comments15 min readLW link

Bayesian Net­works Aren’t Ne­c­es­sar­ily Causal

Zack_M_Davis14 May 2023 1:42 UTC
95 points
37 comments8 min readLW link

Three more sto­ries about causation

cousin_it3 Nov 2020 15:51 UTC
15 points
6 comments1 min readLW link

Causal Universes

Eliezer Yudkowsky29 Nov 2012 4:08 UTC
134 points
395 comments11 min readLW link

Time­less Causality

Eliezer Yudkowsky29 May 2008 6:45 UTC
48 points
67 comments8 min readLW link

Book re­view: Pearl’s Book of Why

PeterMcCluskey7 Jul 2018 17:30 UTC
69 points
8 comments6 min readLW link
(www.bayesianinvestor.com)

No Cau­sa­tion with­out Reification

Gordon Seidoh Worley23 Oct 2020 20:28 UTC
21 points
38 comments3 min readLW link

Finite Fac­tored Sets

Scott Garrabrant23 May 2021 20:52 UTC
148 points
95 comments24 min readLW link1 review

Finite Fac­tored Sets in Pictures

Magdalena Wache11 Dec 2022 18:49 UTC
174 points
35 comments12 min readLW link

[Question] Col­lider bias as a cog­ni­tive blindspot?

TurnTrout30 Dec 2020 2:39 UTC
54 points
12 comments2 min readLW link

Fake Causality

Eliezer Yudkowsky23 Aug 2007 18:12 UTC
125 points
88 comments4 min readLW link

[Link] Sarah Con­stantin: “Why I am Not An AI Doomer”

lbThingrb12 Apr 2023 1:52 UTC
61 points
13 comments1 min readLW link
(sarahconstantin.substack.com)

AI al­ign­ment as a trans­la­tion problem

Roman Leventov5 Feb 2024 14:14 UTC
22 points
2 comments3 min readLW link

[Question] How Often Does ¬Cor­re­la­tion ⇏ ¬Cau­sa­tion?

niplav2 Apr 2024 17:58 UTC
19 points
17 comments2 min readLW link

Causal­ity: a chap­ter by chap­ter review

Vaniver26 Sep 2012 16:55 UTC
103 points
20 comments12 min readLW link

Com­pu­ta­tional Model: Causal Di­a­grams with Symmetry

johnswentworth22 Aug 2019 17:54 UTC
53 points
29 comments4 min readLW link

Is Causal­ity in the Map or the Ter­ri­tory?

johnswentworth17 Dec 2019 23:19 UTC
23 points
36 comments3 min readLW link

[LDSL#4] Root cause anal­y­sis ver­sus effect size estimation

tailcalled11 Aug 2024 16:12 UTC
29 points
0 comments2 min readLW link

AXRP Epi­sode 38.0 - Zhijing Jin on LLMs, Causal­ity, and Multi-Agent Systems

DanielFilan14 Nov 2024 7:00 UTC
14 points
0 comments12 min readLW link

Ideal­ized Agents Are Ap­prox­i­mate Causal Mir­rors (+ Rad­i­cal Op­ti­mism on Agent Foun­da­tions)

Thane Ruthenis22 Dec 2023 20:19 UTC
74 points
14 comments6 min readLW link

Stu­pidity and Dishon­esty Ex­plain Each Other Away

Zack_M_Davis28 Dec 2019 19:21 UTC
38 points
18 comments1 min readLW link

z is not the cause of x

hrbigelow23 Oct 2023 17:43 UTC
6 points
2 comments9 min readLW link

Stuff That Makes Stuff Happen

Eliezer Yudkowsky18 Oct 2012 10:49 UTC
103 points
128 comments9 min readLW link

Causal Reference

Eliezer Yudkowsky20 Oct 2012 22:12 UTC
68 points
247 comments12 min readLW link

Pos­si­bil­ity and Could-ness

Eliezer Yudkowsky14 Jun 2008 4:38 UTC
66 points
113 comments9 min readLW link

Op­ti­mized Pro­pa­ganda with Bayesian Net­works: Com­ment on “Ar­tic­u­lat­ing Lay The­o­ries Through Graph­i­cal Models”

Zack_M_Davis29 Jun 2020 2:45 UTC
105 points
10 comments4 min readLW link

[Question] What is the sub­jec­tive ex­pe­rience of free will for agents?

Gordon Seidoh Worley2 Apr 2020 15:53 UTC
10 points
19 comments1 min readLW link

The Use­ful Idea of Truth

Eliezer Yudkowsky2 Oct 2012 18:16 UTC
185 points
544 comments14 min readLW link

Causal In­fer­ence Se­quence Part 1: Ba­sic Ter­minol­ogy and the As­sump­tions of Causal Inference

Anders_H30 Jul 2014 20:56 UTC
46 points
26 comments10 min readLW link

Se­quence An­nounce­ment: Ap­plied Causal Inference

Anders_H30 Jul 2014 20:55 UTC
44 points
3 comments5 min readLW link

Causal In­fer­ence Se­quence Part II: Graph­i­cal Models

Anders_H4 Aug 2014 23:10 UTC
15 points
4 comments6 min readLW link

[Question] The­ory of Causal Models with Dy­namic Struc­ture?

johnswentworth23 Jan 2020 19:47 UTC
24 points
6 comments1 min readLW link

Don’t Pull a Bro­ken Chain

johnswentworth28 Aug 2019 1:21 UTC
31 points
6 comments5 min readLW link

In­tro­duc­tion to Towards Causal Foun­da­tions of Safe AGI

12 Jun 2023 17:55 UTC
67 points
6 comments4 min readLW link

[Question] What is the in­ter­pre­ta­tion of the do() op­er­a­tor?

Bunthut26 Aug 2020 21:54 UTC
10 points
6 comments1 min readLW link

[Question] Are there any good, easy-to-un­der­stand ex­am­ples of cases where statis­ti­cal causal net­work dis­cov­ery worked well in prac­tice?

tailcalled12 Jul 2023 22:08 UTC
42 points
6 comments1 min readLW link

Goal-Direc­tion for Si­mu­lated Agents

Raymond D12 Jul 2023 17:06 UTC
33 points
2 comments6 min readLW link

Time is ho­mo­ge­neous se­quen­tially-com­pos­able determination

TsviBT8 Oct 2023 14:58 UTC
15 points
0 comments21 min readLW link

Zen and Ra­tion­al­ity: Karma

Gordon Seidoh Worley12 Jan 2021 20:56 UTC
11 points
1 comment1 min readLW link

Limit­ing Causal­ity by Com­plex­ity Class

Bunthut30 Jan 2021 12:18 UTC
18 points
10 comments1 min readLW link

Why 1-box­ing doesn’t im­ply back­wards causation

Chris_Leong25 Mar 2021 2:32 UTC
7 points
14 comments4 min readLW link

Sav­ing Time

Scott Garrabrant18 May 2021 20:11 UTC
159 points
20 comments4 min readLW link1 review

Finite Fac­tored Sets: In­tro­duc­tion and Factorizations

Scott Garrabrant4 Jun 2021 17:41 UTC
36 points
2 comments10 min readLW link

AXRP Epi­sode 9 - Finite Fac­tored Sets with Scott Garrabrant

DanielFilan24 Jun 2021 22:10 UTC
59 points
2 comments59 min readLW link

Finite Fac­tored Sets: Con­di­tional Orthogonality

Scott Garrabrant9 Jul 2021 6:01 UTC
29 points
2 comments7 min readLW link

[Question] Good soft­ware to draw and ma­nipu­late causal net­works?

J Bostock2 Sep 2021 14:05 UTC
6 points
3 comments1 min readLW link

Causal vs Pre­dic­tive Models, and the Causal Taboo

Hazard18 Oct 2021 15:05 UTC
22 points
1 comment2 min readLW link

Pre­dic­tive Cat­e­gories Make Bad Causal Variables

Hazard18 Oct 2021 15:02 UTC
27 points
5 comments7 min readLW link

Is back­wards cau­sa­tion nec­es­sar­ily ab­surd?

Chris_Leong14 Jan 2020 19:25 UTC
22 points
9 comments1 min readLW link

Causal­ity and de­ter­minism in so­cial sci­ence—An in­ves­ti­ga­tion us­ing Pearl’s causal ladder

tailcalled3 Jan 2022 17:51 UTC
12 points
10 comments9 min readLW link

Re­duc­tion­ism is not the ul­ti­mate tool for causal inference

tailcalled7 Jan 2022 21:51 UTC
11 points
1 comment3 min readLW link

[Question] What is the equiv­a­lent of the “do” op­er­a­tor for finite fac­tored sets?

Chris van Merwijk17 Mar 2022 8:05 UTC
8 points
2 comments1 min readLW link

[Question] Ex­am­ples of prac­ti­cal im­pli­ca­tions of Judea Pearl’s Causal­ity work

ChristianKl1 Jul 2022 20:58 UTC
23 points
6 comments1 min readLW link

Con­found it! Cor­re­la­tion is (usu­ally) not cau­sa­tion! But why not?

gwern9 Jul 2014 3:04 UTC
67 points
34 comments1 min readLW link

Tak­ing “cor­re­la­tion does not im­ply cau­sa­tion” back from the internet

sixes_and_sevens3 Oct 2012 12:18 UTC
62 points
70 comments1 min readLW link

Is Caviar a Risk Fac­tor For Be­ing a Million­aire?

Anders_H9 Dec 2016 16:27 UTC
67 points
9 comments1 min readLW link

Real­ity and re­al­ity-boxes

Jim Pivarski13 May 2023 14:14 UTC
37 points
11 comments21 min readLW link

Causal­ity is Everywhere

silentbob13 Feb 2024 13:44 UTC
26 points
12 comments8 min readLW link

Gen­er­al­iz­ing Ex­per­i­men­tal Re­sults by Lev­er­ag­ing Knowl­edge of Mechanisms

Carlos_Cinelli11 Dec 2019 20:39 UTC
50 points
5 comments1 min readLW link

Causal di­a­grams and soft­ware engineering

Morendil7 Mar 2012 18:23 UTC
53 points
29 comments5 min readLW link

A FLI post­doc­toral grant ap­pli­ca­tion: AI al­ign­ment via causal anal­y­sis and de­sign of agents

PabloAMC13 Nov 2021 1:44 UTC
4 points
0 comments7 min readLW link

Causal­ity and Mo­ral Responsibility

Eliezer Yudkowsky13 Jun 2008 8:34 UTC
55 points
55 comments5 min readLW link

Log­i­cal Rep­re­sen­ta­tion of Causal Models

johnswentworth21 Jan 2020 20:04 UTC
37 points
0 comments3 min readLW link

The Gen­er­al­ized Anti-Zom­bie Principle

Eliezer Yudkowsky5 Apr 2008 23:16 UTC
49 points
64 comments10 min readLW link

Ghosts in the Machine

Eliezer Yudkowsky17 Jun 2008 23:29 UTC
68 points
30 comments4 min readLW link

New pa­per: The In­cen­tives that Shape Behaviour

RyanCarey23 Jan 2020 19:07 UTC
23 points
5 comments1 min readLW link
(arxiv.org)

Anti-cor­re­lated causation

DirectedEvolution6 Dec 2021 4:36 UTC
18 points
2 comments3 min readLW link

What is a Coun­ter­fac­tual: An Ele­men­tary In­tro­duc­tion to the Causal Hierarchy

Darmani2 Jan 2022 3:46 UTC
11 points
2 comments5 min readLW link

Three Fal­la­cies of Teleology

Eliezer Yudkowsky25 Aug 2008 22:27 UTC
36 points
14 comments9 min readLW link

Time­less Control

Eliezer Yudkowsky7 Jun 2008 5:16 UTC
47 points
69 comments9 min readLW link

From Finite Fac­tors to Bayes Nets

J Bostock23 Jan 2024 20:03 UTC
38 points
7 comments8 min readLW link

Causal­ity: A Brief Introduction

20 Jun 2023 15:01 UTC
49 points
18 comments6 min readLW link

[Link] In­tro to causal in­fer­ence by Michael Niel­sen (2012)

yagudin19 Jul 2019 12:19 UTC
29 points
0 comments1 min readLW link

Agency from a causal perspective

30 Jun 2023 17:37 UTC
39 points
5 comments6 min readLW link

In­cen­tives from a causal perspective

10 Jul 2023 17:16 UTC
27 points
0 comments6 min readLW link

Causal rep­re­sen­ta­tion learn­ing as a tech­nique to pre­vent goal misgeneralization

PabloAMC4 Jan 2023 0:07 UTC
19 points
0 comments8 min readLW link

An Open Philan­thropy grant pro­posal: Causal rep­re­sen­ta­tion learn­ing of hu­man preferences

PabloAMC11 Jan 2022 11:28 UTC
19 points
6 comments8 min readLW link

In­ter­pretabil­ity as Com­pres­sion: Re­con­sid­er­ing SAE Ex­pla­na­tions of Neu­ral Ac­ti­va­tions with MDL-SAEs

23 Aug 2024 18:52 UTC
39 points
5 comments16 min readLW link

Re­ward Hack­ing from a Causal Perspective

21 Jul 2023 18:27 UTC
29 points
6 comments7 min readLW link

A re­for­mu­la­tion of Finite Fac­tored Sets

Matthias G. Mayer24 Jul 2023 13:02 UTC
76 points
1 comment8 min readLW link

A crit­i­cal agen­tial ac­count of free will, cau­sa­tion, and physics

jessicata5 Mar 2020 7:57 UTC
25 points
10 comments12 min readLW link
(unstableontology.com)

Causal­ity and a Cost Se­man­tics for Neu­ral Networks

scottviteri21 Aug 2023 21:02 UTC
22 points
1 comment1 min readLW link

Grasp­ing Slip­pery Things

Eliezer Yudkowsky17 Jun 2008 2:04 UTC
36 points
17 comments7 min readLW link

The Fal­lacy of Dress­ing Like a Winner

benelliott26 Dec 2010 20:59 UTC
27 points
21 comments6 min readLW link

[Question] Choos­ing a book on causality

martinkunev7 Feb 2024 21:16 UTC
4 points
3 comments1 min readLW link

The goal of physics

Jim Pivarski2 Sep 2023 23:08 UTC
46 points
4 comments5 min readLW link

For­mal­iz­ing «Boundaries» with Markov blankets

Chipmonk19 Sep 2023 21:01 UTC
21 points
20 comments3 min readLW link

[LINK] Judea Pearl wins 2011 Tur­ing Award

[deleted]15 Mar 2012 16:32 UTC
32 points
2 comments1 min readLW link

[Question] How to write a LW se­quence to learn a topic?

PabloAMC3 Apr 2022 20:09 UTC
3 points
2 comments1 min readLW link

Michael Niel­sen ex­plains Judea Pearl’s causality

gwern24 Jan 2012 19:35 UTC
30 points
15 comments1 min readLW link

Causal­ity does not im­ply correlation

Richard_Kennaway8 Jul 2009 0:52 UTC
18 points
58 comments4 min readLW link

At 87, Pearl is still able to change his mind

rotatingpaguro18 Oct 2023 4:46 UTC
148 points
15 comments5 min readLW link

Causal­ity, Trans­for­ma­tive AI and al­ign­ment—part I

Marius Hobbhahn27 Jan 2022 16:18 UTC
14 points
11 comments8 min readLW link

How RL Agents Be­have When Their Ac­tions Are Mod­ified? [Distil­la­tion post]

PabloAMC20 May 2022 18:47 UTC
22 points
0 comments8 min readLW link

Against but­terfly effect

ForensicOceanography9 Feb 2021 7:46 UTC
5 points
10 comments1 min readLW link
(forensicoceanography.wordpress.com)

In­ves­ti­gat­ing causal un­der­stand­ing in LLMs

14 Jun 2022 13:57 UTC
28 points
6 comments13 min readLW link

[Question] Ques­tion about Lewis’ coun­ter­fac­tual the­ory of causation

jbkjr7 Jun 2024 20:15 UTC
12 points
7 comments1 min readLW link

How To Do Patch­ing Fast

Joseph Miller11 May 2024 20:13 UTC
40 points
6 comments4 min readLW link

Ap­ply­ing Force to the Wrong End of a Causal Chain

silentbob22 Jun 2024 18:06 UTC
40 points
0 comments9 min readLW link

Sav­ing Lives Re­duces Over-Pop­u­la­tion—A Counter-In­tu­itive Non-Zero-Sum Game

James Stephen Brown28 Jun 2024 19:29 UTC
6 points
0 comments5 min readLW link
(nonzerosum.games)

Beyond Bio­mark­ers: Un­der­stand­ing Mul­tis­cale Causality

Matěj Nekoranec7 Jul 2024 9:56 UTC
13 points
0 comments7 min readLW link

Free Will, Deter­minism, And Choice

Zero Contradictions6 Jul 2024 6:34 UTC
7 points
3 comments1 min readLW link
(thewaywardaxolotl.blogspot.com)

[Question] Why do Min­i­mal Bayes Nets of­ten cor­re­spond to Causal Models of Real­ity?

Dalcy3 Aug 2024 12:39 UTC
27 points
1 comment1 min readLW link

But Where do the Vari­ables of my Causal Model come from?

Dalcy9 Aug 2024 22:07 UTC
36 points
1 comment8 min readLW link

Many meth­ods of causal in­fer­ence try to iden­tify a “safe” sub­set of variation

tailcalled30 Mar 2021 14:36 UTC
13 points
6 comments9 min readLW link

Does but­terfly af­fect?

pchvykov14 May 2021 4:20 UTC
14 points
21 comments2 min readLW link

Where Free Will and Deter­minism Meet

David Bravo4 Apr 2023 10:59 UTC
0 points
0 comments3 min readLW link

Causal con­fu­sion as an ar­gu­ment against the scal­ing hypothesis

20 Jun 2022 10:54 UTC
86 points
30 comments15 min readLW link

What Is The True Name of Mo­du­lar­ity?

1 Jul 2022 14:55 UTC
39 points
10 comments12 min readLW link

Agent mem­branes and causal distance

Chipmonk2 Jan 2024 22:43 UTC
20 points
3 comments3 min readLW link

Progress on Causal In­fluence Diagrams

tom4everitt30 Jun 2021 15:34 UTC
73 points
6 comments9 min readLW link

[Question] Define “Agent” (Embed­ded)

Apollonia24 Mar 2024 20:14 UTC
10 points
1 comment1 min readLW link

How to de­stroy the uni­verse with a hypercomputer

Trevor Cappallo5 Jul 2022 19:05 UTC
2 points
3 comments1 min readLW link

The Fun­da­men­tal The­o­rem for mea­surable fac­tor spaces

Matthias G. Mayer12 Nov 2023 19:25 UTC
38 points
2 comments2 min readLW link

[Question] Causal with­out cor­re­la­tion, how?

MoritzG30 Aug 2021 16:43 UTC
2 points
7 comments1 min readLW link

Ap­ply to the Con­cep­tual Boundaries Work­shop for AI Safety

Chipmonk27 Nov 2023 21:04 UTC
50 points
0 comments3 min readLW link

Your in­ner Google

PhilGoetz16 Sep 2011 6:56 UTC
163 points
70 comments1 min readLW link

You Are A Brain

Liron9 May 2009 21:53 UTC
131 points
64 comments1 min readLW link

Self-fulfilling correlations

PhilGoetz26 Aug 2010 21:07 UTC
151 points
50 comments3 min readLW link

Dis­cov­er­ing Agents

zac_kenton18 Aug 2022 17:33 UTC
73 points
11 comments6 min readLW link

What is Ev­i­dence?

Eliezer Yudkowsky22 Sep 2007 6:43 UTC
177 points
61 comments3 min readLW link

Right­ing a Wrong Question

Eliezer Yudkowsky9 Mar 2008 13:00 UTC
129 points
111 comments3 min readLW link

The Sim­ple Truth

Eliezer Yudkowsky1 Jan 2008 20:00 UTC
156 points
15 comments22 min readLW link

Mini-re­view: The Book of Why

Brian Slesinsky21 May 2018 23:11 UTC
21 points
5 comments1 min readLW link

Ex­plain­ing vs. Ex­plain­ing Away

Eliezer Yudkowsky17 Mar 2008 1:59 UTC
109 points
101 comments4 min readLW link

Model­ing AGI Safety Frame­works with Causal In­fluence Diagrams

Ramana Kumar21 Jun 2019 12:50 UTC
43 points
6 comments1 min readLW link
(arxiv.org)
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