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A Graphical Terminology An arbitrary graph

Neural Information Processing Systems

We refer the readers to ( Peters et al., 2017) for more detailed graphical terminology. We base our proof mostly on ( Kirsch, 2019). The first statement follows directly from the first theorem in ( Haviland, 1936). Without loss of generality, we reorder the variables according to reversed topological ordering, i.e. a Follows directly from Lemma 1. Lemma 4. Recall condition 2) in Causal de Finetti states that 8 i, 8 n 2 N: X The first equality holds by well-defindedness. The fourth equality follow from well-definedness.



Causal de Finetti: On the Identification of Invariant Causal Structure in Exchangeable Data

Neural Information Processing Systems

Just as the majority of machine learning methods, existing work focuses on studying $\textit{independent and identically distributed}$ data. However, it is known that even with infinite $i.i.d.\$ data, constraint-based methods can only identify causal structures up to broad Markov equivalence classes, posing a fundamental limitation for causal discovery. In this work, we observe that exchangeable data contains richer conditional independence structure than $i.i.d.\$ data, and show how the richer structure can be leveraged for causal discovery. We first present causal de Finetti theorems, which state that exchangeable distributions with certain non-trivial conditional independences can always be represented as $\textit{independent causal mechanism (ICM)}$ generative processes. We then present our main identifiability theorem, which shows that given data from an ICM generative process, its unique causal structure can be identified through performing conditional independence tests. We finally develop a causal discovery algorithm and demonstrate its applicability to inferring causal relationships from multi-environment data.


A Graphical Terminology An arbitrary graph

Neural Information Processing Systems

We refer the readers to ( Peters et al., 2017) for more detailed graphical terminology. We base our proof mostly on ( Kirsch, 2019). The first statement follows directly from the first theorem in ( Haviland, 1936). Without loss of generality, we reorder the variables according to reversed topological ordering, i.e. a Follows directly from Lemma 1. Lemma 4. Recall condition 2) in Causal de Finetti states that 8 i, 8 n 2 N: X The first equality holds by well-defindedness. The fourth equality follow from well-definedness.



From Partial Exchangeability to Predictive Probability: A Bayesian Perspective on Classification

arXiv.org Machine Learning

We propose a novel Bayesian nonparametric classification model that combines a Gaussian process prior for the latent function with a Dirichlet process prior for the link function, extending the interpretative framework of de Finetti representation theorem and the construction of random distribution functions made by Ferguson (1973). This approach allows for flexible uncertainty modeling in both the latent score and the mapping to probabilities. We demonstrate the method performance using simulated data where it outperforms standard logistic regression.


Formal Power Series Representations in Probability and Expected Utility Theory

arXiv.org Artificial Intelligence

We advance a general theory of coherent preference that surrenders restrictions embodied in orthodox doctrine. This theory enjoys the property that any preference system admits extension to a complete system of preferences, provided it satisfies a certain coherence requirement analogous to the one de Finetti advanced for his foundations of probability. Unlike de Finetti's theory, the one we set forth requires neither transitivity nor Archimedeanness nor boundedness nor continuity of preference. This theory also enjoys the property that any complete preference system meeting the standard of coherence can be represented by utility in an ordered field extension of the reals. Representability by utility is a corollary of this paper's central result, which at once extends H older's Theorem and strengthens Hahn's Embedding Theorem.


Do Finetti: On Causal Effects for Exchangeable Data

Neural Information Processing Systems

We study causal effect estimation in a setting where the data are not i.i.d. We focus on exchangeable data satisfying an assumption of independent causal mechanisms. Traditional causal effect estimation frameworks, e.g., relying on structural causal models and do-calculus, are typically limited to i.i.d. To address this gap, we develop a generalized framework for exchangeable data and introduce a truncated factorization formula that facilitates both the identification and estimation of causal effects in our setting. To illustrate potential applications, we introduce a causal Pólya urn model and demonstrate how intervention propagates effects in exchangeable data settings.


A Representation Theory for Ranking Functions

Neural Information Processing Systems

This paper presents a representation theory for permutation-valued functions, which in their general form can also be called listwise ranking functions. Pointwise ranking functions assign a score to each object independently, without taking into account the other objects under consideration; whereas listwise loss functions evaluate the set of scores assigned to all objects as a whole. In many supervised learning to rank tasks, it might be of interest to use listwise ranking functions instead; in particular, the Bayes Optimal ranking functions might themselves be listwise, especially if the loss function is listwise. A key caveat to using listwise ranking functions has been the lack of an appropriate representation theory for such functions. We show that a natural symmetricity assumption that we call exchangeability allows us to explicitly characterize the set of such exchangeable listwise ranking functions. Our analysis draws from the theories of tensor analysis, functional analysis and De Finetti theorems. We also present experiments using a novel reranking method motivated by our representation theory.


Causal de Finetti: On the Identification of Invariant Causal Structure in Exchangeable Data

Neural Information Processing Systems

Just as the majority of machine learning methods, existing work focuses on studying \textit{independent and identically distributed} data. However, it is known that even with infinite i.i.d.\ data, constraint-based methods can only identify causal structures up to broad Markov equivalence classes, posing a fundamental limitation for causal discovery. In this work, we observe that exchangeable data contains richer conditional independence structure than i.i.d.\ data, and show how the richer structure can be leveraged for causal discovery. We first present causal de Finetti theorems, which state that exchangeable distributions with certain non-trivial conditional independences can always be represented as \textit{independent causal mechanism (ICM)} generative processes. We then present our main identifiability theorem, which shows that given data from an ICM generative process, its unique causal structure can be identified through performing conditional independence tests. We finally develop a causal discovery algorithm and demonstrate its applicability to inferring causal relationships from multi-environment data.