Causality is a complex concept, which roots its developments across several fields, such as statistics, economics, epidemiology, computer science, and philosophy. In recent years, the study of causal relationships has become a crucial part of the Artificial Intelligence community, as causality can be a key tool for overcoming some limitations of correlation-based Machine Learning systems. Causality research can generally be divided into two main branches, that is, causal discovery and causal inference. The former focuses on obtaining causal knowledge directly from observational data. The latter aims to estimate the impact deriving from a change of a certain variable over an outcome of interest. This article aims at covering several methodologies that have been developed for both tasks. This survey does not only focus on theoretical aspects. But also provides a practical toolkit for interested researchers and practitioners, including software, datasets, and running examples. This article is categorized under: Algorithmic Development > Causality Discovery Fundamental Concepts of Data and Knowledge > Explainable AI Technologies > Machine Learning.

Methods and tools for causal discovery and causal inference

Pugnana, Andrea
;
Pedreschi, Dino;
2022

Abstract

Causality is a complex concept, which roots its developments across several fields, such as statistics, economics, epidemiology, computer science, and philosophy. In recent years, the study of causal relationships has become a crucial part of the Artificial Intelligence community, as causality can be a key tool for overcoming some limitations of correlation-based Machine Learning systems. Causality research can generally be divided into two main branches, that is, causal discovery and causal inference. The former focuses on obtaining causal knowledge directly from observational data. The latter aims to estimate the impact deriving from a change of a certain variable over an outcome of interest. This article aims at covering several methodologies that have been developed for both tasks. This survey does not only focus on theoretical aspects. But also provides a practical toolkit for interested researchers and practitioners, including software, datasets, and running examples. This article is categorized under: Algorithmic Development > Causality Discovery Fundamental Concepts of Data and Knowledge > Explainable AI Technologies > Machine Learning.
2022
Settore INF/01 - Informatica
causal discovery; causal inference; causality
File in questo prodotto:
File Dimensione Formato  
WIREs Data Min Knowl - 2022 - Nogueira - Methods and tools for causal discovery and causal inference.pdf

accesso aperto

Tipologia: Published version
Licenza: Creative Commons
Dimensione 4.51 MB
Formato Adobe PDF
4.51 MB Adobe PDF

I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.

Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11384/136446
Citazioni
  • ???jsp.display-item.citation.pmc??? ND
  • Scopus 76
  • ???jsp.display-item.citation.isi??? 58
  • OpenAlex ND
social impact