Essay.03-ZhancunMu-2100017790

Zhancun Mu

Keywords: causality, causal structure, causal model

Abstract:

Humans exhibit a remarkable ability to learn causal models of their environment.
This ability is crucial for understanding the world, society, and making plans and
decisions. However, the current paradigm of learning and acting in an environ-
ment, primarily based on reinforcement learning (RL), lacks this causal learning
ability. This leads to problems such as instability, lack of explainability, and high
dependence on reward design. Most importantly, this paradigm cannot learn ab-
stract "dark matters" like social relationships, which are mainly perceived through
causal reasoning. In this essay, we will discuss features and components of hu-
mans’ causal learning abilities that can provide insights into learning causal mod-
els in an environment.

Submission Number: 73