Tree Search in DAG Space with Model-based Reinforcement Learning for Causal Discovery

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Darvariu, Victor-Alexandru, Hailes, Stephen, Musolesi, Mirco
Format: Preprint
Published: 2023
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author Darvariu, Victor-Alexandru
Hailes, Stephen
Musolesi, Mirco
author_facet Darvariu, Victor-Alexandru
Hailes, Stephen
Musolesi, Mirco
contents Identifying causal structure is central to many fields ranging from strategic decision-making to biology and economics. In this work, we propose CD-UCT, a model-based reinforcement learning method for causal discovery based on tree search that builds directed acyclic graphs incrementally. We also formalize and prove the correctness of an efficient algorithm for excluding edges that would introduce cycles, which enables deeper discrete search and sampling in DAG space. The proposed method can be applied broadly to causal Bayesian networks with both discrete and continuous random variables. We conduct a comprehensive evaluation on synthetic and real-world datasets, showing that CD-UCT substantially outperforms the state-of-the-art model-free reinforcement learning technique and greedy search, constituting a promising advancement for combinatorial methods.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2310_13576
institution arXiv
publishDate 2023
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Tree Search in DAG Space with Model-based Reinforcement Learning for Causal Discovery
Darvariu, Victor-Alexandru
Hailes, Stephen
Musolesi, Mirco
Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
Identifying causal structure is central to many fields ranging from strategic decision-making to biology and economics. In this work, we propose CD-UCT, a model-based reinforcement learning method for causal discovery based on tree search that builds directed acyclic graphs incrementally. We also formalize and prove the correctness of an efficient algorithm for excluding edges that would introduce cycles, which enables deeper discrete search and sampling in DAG space. The proposed method can be applied broadly to causal Bayesian networks with both discrete and continuous random variables. We conduct a comprehensive evaluation on synthetic and real-world datasets, showing that CD-UCT substantially outperforms the state-of-the-art model-free reinforcement learning technique and greedy search, constituting a promising advancement for combinatorial methods.
title Tree Search in DAG Space with Model-based Reinforcement Learning for Causal Discovery
topic Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2310.13576