构建可审计的因果图,让大模型推理更透明可靠。
Causal-Audit: Explicit and Auditable Graph-based Reasoning via Target-Aware Causal Chain Construction

- 通过显式因果图分步推理,替代隐式语言预测
- 在三个基准上优于现有方法,提升推理鲁棒性
- 适合需要可解释推理的高风险决策场景
因果与干预式问答是推动大语言模型超越表面相关性、理解深层因果机制的关键。然而,现有基于LLM的方法多依赖隐式的语言级推理,导致因果假设不透明、推理路径不可验证,且在复杂干预下表现脆弱,尤其在无上下文环境中。本文提出一种面向无上下文干预问答的显式可审计因果推理框架。该方法将因果推断建模为在显式因果图上的结构化推理,包含四个模块化阶段,而非隐式的端到端预测。核心创新在于目标感知的因果图构建策略,在图扩展过程中以目标变量为核心约束,有效抑制无关变量、虚假因果关系和推理噪声。此外,引入路径级因果证据聚合机制,综合多条因果路径并建模增强与抵消效应,实现超越单链推理的稳健决策。在三个基准上的大量实验表明,本框架持续优于现有基于LLM的方法,同时提供可解释、可审计的因果推理轨迹。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
Causal and intervention-based question answering is fundamental to advancing large language models (LLMs) toward reasoning beyond surface-level correlations and understanding underlying causal mechanisms. However, existing LLM-based methods often rely on implicit language-level reasoning, resulting in opaque causal assumptions, unverifiable reasoning paths, and fragile predictions under complex interventions, particularly in context-free settings. In this paper, we propose an explicit and auditable causal reasoning framework for context-free intervention-based question answering. Our method formulates causal inference as structured reasoning over an explicit causal graph through four modular stages, rather than implicit end-to-end prediction. A key innovation is a target-aware causal graph construction strategy that treats the target variable as a core constraint during graph expansion, effectively suppressing irrelevant variables, spurious causal relations, and reasoning noise. We further introduce a path-level causal evidence aggregation mechanism that combines multiple causal paths while modeling both reinforcing and counteracting effects, enabling robust decision-making beyond single-chain reasoning. Extensive experiments on three benchmarks demonstrate that our framework consistently outperforms existing LLM-based methods while providing interpretable and auditable causal reasoning traces.
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