用对抗实验设计检验生成模型的因果结构是否真实。
Adversarial Causal Intervention Falsification
- 让对手设计干预实验,逼生成模型暴露错误因果关系。
- 证明了在有限条件下能准确识别因果等价类,点识别需特定干预集。
- 适合研究因果生成模型与主动因果发现的学者参考。
生成模型可能复现观测分布却包含错误的因果结构。本文提出对抗性因果干预伪造框架(ACIF),构建生成器与对抗实验者之间的序贯博弈:生成器提供观测与干预后分布,实验者选择最能揭穿生成器的干预策略。此时判别器不再只是真假分类器,而是针对特定干预测试生成分布是否符合后干预规律。我们给出该博弈的理论版与可实现版本,明确区分三个常被混淆的概念:观测拟合、可接受查询类上的干预等价性、结构因果模型的点识别。在有限模型与干预集合下,证明:(i) 对抗目标可精确化为最坏干预下的积分概率度量;(ii) 可识别至干预等价类,特定干预族下实现点识别;(iii) 存在混合策略均衡;(iv) 具有有限样本一致收敛与基于边界模型选择保证;(v) 在平衡分离条件下,通过分歧驱动的序列设计实现对数级消除。还提供一个线性高斯案例,说明单个精心设计的干预即可区分两个观测上不可区分的因果方向。该框架阐明了对抗因果判别器的能力边界,并为因果生成建模、主动因果发现与实验设计提供了严谨桥梁。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
Generative models can reproduce an observational distribution while encoding an incorrect causal structure. We study a sequential game in which a structural causal generator proposes observational and interventional distributions, while an adversarial experimentalist selects interventions intended to maximally falsify the generator. The discriminator is therefore not merely a real-versus-synthetic classifier: it is indexed by an intervention and tests whether the generator reproduces the corresponding post-intervention law. We introduce Adversarial Causal Intervention Falsification (ACIF), formulate oracle and implementable versions of the game, and distinguish three objects that are often conflated: observational fit, interventional equivalence over an admissible query class, and point identification of a structural causal model. For finite model and intervention classes, we prove: (i) an exact reduction of the adversarial objective to a worst-intervention integral probability metric; (ii) identification up to interventional equivalence, with point identification under a separating intervention family; (iii) existence of mixed-strategy equilibria; (iv) finite-sample uniform convergence and margin-based model-selection guarantees; and (v) a logarithmic elimination guarantee for a disagreement-driven sequential design under a balanced-separation condition. We also give a complete linear-Gaussian example in which two observationally indistinguishable causal directions are separated by a single well-chosen intervention. The framework clarifies what an adversarial causal discriminator can and cannot certify, and provides a principled bridge between causal generative modeling, active causal discovery, and experimental design.
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