Causal Agent based on Large Language Model
On the map: LLM agents and tool use → Medical and scientific domain agents
Abstract (arXiv)
The large language model (LLM) has achieved significant success across various domains. However, the inherent complexity of causal problems and causal theory poses challenges in accurately describing them in natural language, making it difficult for LLM to comprehend and use them effectively. Causal methods are not easily conveyed through natural language, which hinders LLM's ability to apply them accurately. Additionally, causal datasets are typically tabular, while LLM excels in handling natural language data, creating a structural mismatch that impedes effective reasoning with tabular data. To address these challenges, we have equipped the LLM with causal tools within an agent framework, named the Causal Agent, enabling it to tackle causal problems. The causal agent comprises tools, memory, and reasoning modules. In the tool module, the causal agent calls Python code and uses the encapsulated causal function module to align tabular data with natural language. In the reasoning module, the causal agent performs reasoning through multiple iterations with the tools. In the memory module, the causal agent maintains a dictionary instance where the keys are unique names and the values are causal graphs. To verify the causal ability of the causal agent, we established a Causal Tabular Question Answer (CausalTQA) benchmark consisting of four levels of causal problems: variable level, edge level, causal graph level, and causal effect level. CausalTQA consists of about 1.4K for these four levels questions. Causal agent demonstrates remarkable efficacy on the four-level causal problems, with accuracy rates all above 80%. Through verification on the real-world dataset QRData, the causal agent is 6% higher than the original SOTA. For further insights and implementation details, our code is accessible via the GitHub repository https://github.com/kairong-han/causalagent.
Key facts. Cited by 10 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Placed in Medical and scientific domain agents, one of 16 directions in LLM agents and tool use. Builds on 39 of its 70 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 13 Aug 2024.
Builds on
39 of 70 references.
References · 39
- 2023GPT-4 Technical Reportcited by 18,132
- 2023LLaMA: Open and Efficient Foundation Language Modelscited by 13,958
- 2022Chain-of-Thought Prompting Elicits Reasoning in Large Language Modelscited by 12,302
- 2022ReAct: Synergizing Reasoning and Acting in Language Modelscited by 8,355
- 2023Toolformer: Language Models Can Teach Themselves to Use Toolscited by 4,072
- 2023Reflexion: Language Agents with Verbal Reinforcement Learningcited by 4,064
- 2023Tree of Thoughts: Deliberate Problem Solving with Large Language Modelscited by 3,155
- 2023Code Llama: Open Foundation Models for Codecited by 2,105
- 2023ToolLLM: Facilitating Large Language Models to Master 16000+ Real-world APIscited by 1,880
- 2023HuggingGPT: Solving AI Tasks with ChatGPT and its Friends in Hugging Facecited by 1,173
- 2024DeepSeek-Coder: When the Large Language Model Meets Programming -- The Rise of Code Intelligencecited by 1,154
- 2023A Comprehensive Overview of Large Language Modelscited by 639
27 more
- 2023WizardMath: Empowering Mathematical Reasoning for Large Language Models via Reinforced Evol-Instructcited by 618
- 2023Causal Reasoning and Large Language Models: Opening a New Frontier for Causalitycited by 348
- 2023AgentTuning: Enabling Generalized Agent Abilities for LLMscited by 319
- 2023ChatGPT: Jack of all trades, master of nonecited by 204
- 2013Causal Inference in the Presence of Latent Variables and Selection Biascited by 165
- 2023Causal Parrots: Large Language Models May Talk Causality But Are Not Causalcited by 146
- 2023Can Large Language Models Infer Causation from Correlation?cited by 142
- 2023TableLlama: Towards Open Large Generalist Models for Tablescited by 136
- 2023RestGPT: Connecting Large Language Models with Real-World RESTful APIscited by 129
- 2023Emergent autonomous scientific research capabilities of large language modelscited by 127
- 2023ChatEDA: A Large Language Model Powered Autonomous Agent for EDAcited by 118
- 2022Score matching enables causal discovery of nonlinear additive noise modelscited by 108
- 2023Causal-learn: Causal Discovery in Pythoncited by 108
- 2023CLadder: Assessing Causal Reasoning in Language Modelscited by 102
- 2023Is ChatGPT a Good Causal Reasoner? A Comprehensive Evaluationcited by 69
- 2023Table-GPT: Table-tuned GPT for Diverse Table Taskscited by 69
- 2019Out-of-domain Detection for Natural Language Understanding in Dialog Systemscited by 62
- 2024Are LLMs Capable of Data-based Statistical and Causal Reasoning? Benchmarking Advanced Quantitative Reasoning with Datacited by 61
- 2024Auffusion: Leveraging the Power of Diffusion and Large Language Models for Text-to-Audio Generationcited by 54
- 2018Causal Discovery in the Presence of Missing Datacited by 46
- 2023Improving Grounded Language Understanding in a Collaborative Environment by Interacting with Agents Through Help Feedbackcited by 31
- 2023The SocialAI School: Insights from Developmental Psychology Towards Artificial Socio-Cultural Agentscited by 24
- 2022A Review of Causality for Learning Algorithms in Medical Image Analysiscited by 18
- 2023Reflective Linguistic Programming (RLP): A Stepping Stone in Socially-Aware AGI (SocialAGI)cited by 16
- 2023Math Agents: Computational Infrastructure, Mathematical Embedding, and Genomicscited by 15
- 2021Variational Latent-State GPT for Semi-Supervised Task-Oriented Dialog Systemscited by 13
- 2024Derivative-Free Optimization for Low-Rank Adaptation in Large Language Modelscited by 11
Built on by
Citing papers per year: 2024: 2; 2025: 7; 2026: 1.
10 papers.
- 2024Causality for Large Language Modelscited by 24
- 2025CounterBench: Evaluating and Improving Counterfactual Reasoning in Large Language Modelscited by 19
- 2025Simulating Society Requires Simulating Thoughtcited by 12
- 2024Towards Agentic AI on Particle Acceleratorscited by 5
- 2025PhenoAssistant: A Conversational Multi-Agent AI System for Automated Plant Phenotypingcited by 4
- 2025Multi-agent Undercover Gaming: Hallucination Removal via Counterfactual Test for Multimodal Reasoningcited by 4
- 2025Asynchronous Denoising Diffusion Models for Aligning Text-to-Image Generationcited by 3
- 2025Beyond Correlation: Towards Causal Large Language Model Agents in Biomedicinecited by 0
- 2025Mitigating Hidden Confounding by Progressive Confounder Imputation via Large Language Modelscited by 0
- 2026CAMO: An Agentic Framework for Automated Causal Discovery from Micro Behaviors to Macro Emergence in LLM Agent Simulationscited by 0
- 2026CAMO: An Agentic Framework for Automated Causal Discovery from Micro Behaviors to Macro Emergence in LLM Agent Simulations16 Apr 2026
- 2025Multi-agent Undercover Gaming: Hallucination Removal via Counterfactual Test for Multimodal Reasoning14 Nov 2025
- 2025Asynchronous Denoising Diffusion Models for Aligning Text-to-Image Generation6 Oct 2025
- 2025Mitigating Hidden Confounding by Progressive Confounder Imputation via Large Language Models26 Jun 2025
- 2025Simulating Society Requires Simulating Thought8 Jun 2025
- 2025Beyond Correlation: Towards Causal Large Language Model Agents in Biomedicine22 May 2025
- 2025PhenoAssistant: A Conversational Multi-Agent AI System for Automated Plant Phenotyping28 Apr 2025
- 2025CounterBench: Evaluating and Improving Counterfactual Reasoning in Large Language Models16 Feb 2025
- 2024Causality for Large Language Models20 Oct 2024
- 2024Towards Agentic AI on Particle Accelerators10 Sep 2024
Similar, not cited
Close in wording, no citation either way
- 2023LLM4Causal: Democratized Causal Tools for Everyone via Large Language Model
- 2025Causal MAS: A Survey of Large Language Model Architectures for Discovery and Effect Estimation
- 2025Causality for Natural Language Processing
- 2024Large Language Models and Causal Inference in Collaboration: A Survey
- 2024CARL-GT: Evaluating Causal Reasoning Capabilities of Large Language Models
- 2025A Survey on Enhancing Causal Reasoning Ability of Large Language Models
- 2023Integrating Large Language Model for Improved Causal Discovery
- 2025Unveiling Causal Reasoning in Large Language Models: Reality or Mirage?