Causal-aware Large Language Models: Enhancing Decision-Making Through Learning, Adapting and Acting

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Chen, Wei, Zhang, Jiahao, Zhu, Haipeng, Xu, Boyan, Hao, Zhifeng, Zhang, Keli, Ye, Junjian, Cai, Ruichu
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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_version_ 1866908386350596096
author Chen, Wei
Zhang, Jiahao
Zhu, Haipeng
Xu, Boyan
Hao, Zhifeng
Zhang, Keli
Ye, Junjian
Cai, Ruichu
author_facet Chen, Wei
Zhang, Jiahao
Zhu, Haipeng
Xu, Boyan
Hao, Zhifeng
Zhang, Keli
Ye, Junjian
Cai, Ruichu
contents Large language models (LLMs) have shown great potential in decision-making due to the vast amount of knowledge stored within the models. However, these pre-trained models are prone to lack reasoning abilities and are difficult to adapt to new environments, further hindering their application to complex real-world tasks. To address these challenges, inspired by the human cognitive process, we propose Causal-aware LLMs, which integrate the structural causal model (SCM) into the decision-making process to model, update, and utilize structured knowledge of the environment in a ``learning-adapting-acting" paradigm. Specifically, in the learning stage, we first utilize an LLM to extract the environment-specific causal entities and their causal relations to initialize a structured causal model of the environment. Subsequently,in the adapting stage, we update the structured causal model through external feedback about the environment, via an idea of causal intervention. Finally, in the acting stage, Causal-aware LLMs exploit structured causal knowledge for more efficient policy-making through the reinforcement learning agent. The above processes are performed iteratively to learn causal knowledge, ultimately enabling the causal-aware LLMs to achieve a more accurate understanding of the environment and make more efficient decisions. Experimental results across 22 diverse tasks within the open-world game ``Crafter" validate the effectiveness of our proposed method.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2505_24710
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Causal-aware Large Language Models: Enhancing Decision-Making Through Learning, Adapting and Acting
Chen, Wei
Zhang, Jiahao
Zhu, Haipeng
Xu, Boyan
Hao, Zhifeng
Zhang, Keli
Ye, Junjian
Cai, Ruichu
Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
Computation and Language
Large language models (LLMs) have shown great potential in decision-making due to the vast amount of knowledge stored within the models. However, these pre-trained models are prone to lack reasoning abilities and are difficult to adapt to new environments, further hindering their application to complex real-world tasks. To address these challenges, inspired by the human cognitive process, we propose Causal-aware LLMs, which integrate the structural causal model (SCM) into the decision-making process to model, update, and utilize structured knowledge of the environment in a ``learning-adapting-acting" paradigm. Specifically, in the learning stage, we first utilize an LLM to extract the environment-specific causal entities and their causal relations to initialize a structured causal model of the environment. Subsequently,in the adapting stage, we update the structured causal model through external feedback about the environment, via an idea of causal intervention. Finally, in the acting stage, Causal-aware LLMs exploit structured causal knowledge for more efficient policy-making through the reinforcement learning agent. The above processes are performed iteratively to learn causal knowledge, ultimately enabling the causal-aware LLMs to achieve a more accurate understanding of the environment and make more efficient decisions. Experimental results across 22 diverse tasks within the open-world game ``Crafter" validate the effectiveness of our proposed method.
title Causal-aware Large Language Models: Enhancing Decision-Making Through Learning, Adapting and Acting
topic Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
Computation and Language
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.24710