Unsupervised Structural-Counterfactual Generation under Domain Shift

Fuente: arXiv
Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Kher, Krishn Vishwas, Badisa, Lokesh Venkata Siva Maruthi, Mittal, Saksham, Harsha, Kusampudi Venkata Datta Sri, Sowmya, Chitneedi Geetha, Jagarlapudi, SakethaNath
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
Subjects:
Online Access:
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866908550719078400
author Kher, Krishn Vishwas
Badisa, Lokesh Venkata Siva Maruthi
Mittal, Saksham
Harsha, Kusampudi Venkata Datta Sri
Sowmya, Chitneedi Geetha
Jagarlapudi, SakethaNath
author_facet Kher, Krishn Vishwas
Badisa, Lokesh Venkata Siva Maruthi
Mittal, Saksham
Harsha, Kusampudi Venkata Datta Sri
Sowmya, Chitneedi Geetha
Jagarlapudi, SakethaNath
contents Motivated by the burgeoning interest in cross-domain learning, we present a novel generative modeling challenge: generating counterfactual samples in a target domain based on factual observations from a source domain. Our approach operates within an unsupervised paradigm devoid of parallel or joint datasets, relying exclusively on distinct observational samples and causal graphs for each domain. This setting presents challenges that surpass those of conventional counterfactual generation. Central to our methodology is the disambiguation of exogenous causes into effect-intrinsic and domain-intrinsic categories. This differentiation facilitates the integration of domain-specific causal graphs into a unified joint causal graph via shared effect-intrinsic exogenous variables. We propose leveraging Neural Causal models within this joint framework to enable accurate counterfactual generation under standard identifiability assumptions. Furthermore, we introduce a novel loss function that effectively segregates effect-intrinsic from domain-intrinsic variables during model training. Given a factual observation, our framework combines the posterior distribution of effect-intrinsic variables from the source domain with the prior distribution of domain-intrinsic variables from the target domain to synthesize the desired counterfactuals, adhering to Pearl's causal hierarchy. Intriguingly, when domain shifts are restricted to alterations in causal mechanisms without accompanying covariate shifts, our training regimen parallels the resolution of a conditional optimal transport problem. Empirical evaluations on a synthetic dataset show that our framework generates counterfactuals in the target domain that very closely resemble the ground truth.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2502_12013
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Unsupervised Structural-Counterfactual Generation under Domain Shift
Kher, Krishn Vishwas
Badisa, Lokesh Venkata Siva Maruthi
Mittal, Saksham
Harsha, Kusampudi Venkata Datta Sri
Sowmya, Chitneedi Geetha
Jagarlapudi, SakethaNath
Machine Learning
Motivated by the burgeoning interest in cross-domain learning, we present a novel generative modeling challenge: generating counterfactual samples in a target domain based on factual observations from a source domain. Our approach operates within an unsupervised paradigm devoid of parallel or joint datasets, relying exclusively on distinct observational samples and causal graphs for each domain. This setting presents challenges that surpass those of conventional counterfactual generation. Central to our methodology is the disambiguation of exogenous causes into effect-intrinsic and domain-intrinsic categories. This differentiation facilitates the integration of domain-specific causal graphs into a unified joint causal graph via shared effect-intrinsic exogenous variables. We propose leveraging Neural Causal models within this joint framework to enable accurate counterfactual generation under standard identifiability assumptions. Furthermore, we introduce a novel loss function that effectively segregates effect-intrinsic from domain-intrinsic variables during model training. Given a factual observation, our framework combines the posterior distribution of effect-intrinsic variables from the source domain with the prior distribution of domain-intrinsic variables from the target domain to synthesize the desired counterfactuals, adhering to Pearl's causal hierarchy. Intriguingly, when domain shifts are restricted to alterations in causal mechanisms without accompanying covariate shifts, our training regimen parallels the resolution of a conditional optimal transport problem. Empirical evaluations on a synthetic dataset show that our framework generates counterfactuals in the target domain that very closely resemble the ground truth.
title Unsupervised Structural-Counterfactual Generation under Domain Shift
topic Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.12013