mlsanityData to 7 Oct 2026

Causal Inference with Large Language Model: A Survey

arXiv 2409.09822 ↗First posted 15 Sep 2024cs.CL cs.AIcited by 31

On the map: LLM reasoning → Causal reasoning in LLMs

Abstract (arXiv)

Causal inference has been a pivotal challenge across diverse domains such as medicine and economics, demanding a complicated integration of human knowledge, mathematical reasoning, and data mining capabilities. Recent advancements in natural language processing (NLP), particularly with the advent of large language models (LLMs), have introduced promising opportunities for traditional causal inference tasks. This paper reviews recent progress in applying LLMs to causal inference, encompassing various tasks spanning different levels of causation. We summarize the main causal problems and approaches, and present a comparison of their evaluation results in different causal scenarios. Furthermore, we discuss key findings and outline directions for future research, underscoring the potential implications of integrating LLMs in advancing causal inference methodologies.

Key facts. Cited by 31 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Placed in Causal reasoning in LLMs, one of 17 directions in LLM reasoning. Builds on 41 of its 77 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 15 Sep 2024.

Builds on

41 of 77 references.

Closest ancestors · 4

Same direction, newest first

  1. 2023Enhancing Causal Reasoning in Large Language Models: A Causal Attribution Model for Precision Fine-Tuning30 Dec
  2. 2023Is ChatGPT a Good Causal Reasoner? A Comprehensive Evaluation12 May
  3. 2023Causal Reasoning and Large Language Models: Opening a New Frontier for Causality28 Apr
  4. 2022e-CARE: a New Dataset for Exploring Explainable Causal Reasoning12 May

Other references · 37

  1. 2020Language Models are Few-Shot Learnerscited by 32,199
  2. 2023GPT-4 Technical Reportcited by 18,132
  3. 2022Training language models to follow instructions with human feedbackcited by 15,712
  4. 2021LoRA: Low-Rank Adaptation of Large Language Modelscited by 14,084
  5. 2023Llama 2: Open Foundation and Fine-Tuned Chat Modelscited by 12,865
  6. 2022Large Language Models are Zero-Shot Reasonerscited by 4,323
  7. 2023Qwen Technical Reportcited by 3,273
  8. 2022Locating and Editing Factual Associations in GPTcited by 2,609
  9. 2022Ignore Previous Prompt: Attack Techniques For Language Modelscited by 760
  10. 2018DAGs with NO TEARS: Continuous Optimization for Structure Learningcited by 745
  11. 2019Universal Adversarial Triggers for Attacking and Analyzing NLPcited by 709
  12. 2023Trustworthy LLMs: a Survey and Guideline for Evaluating Large Language Models' Alignmentcited by 394
25 more
  1. 2019DAG-GNN: DAG Structure Learning with Graph Neural Networkscited by 329
  2. 2021D'ya like DAGs? A Survey on Structure Learning and Causal Discoverycited by 209
  3. 2020A Survey on Causal Inferencecited by 202
  4. 2021Causal Inference in Natural Language Processing: Estimation, Prediction, Interpretation and Beyondcited by 177
  5. 2013Causal Inference in the Presence of Latent Variables and Selection Biascited by 165
  6. 2023Causal Parrots: Large Language Models May Talk Causality But Are Not Causalcited by 146
  7. 2023Can Large Language Models Infer Causation from Correlation?cited by 142
  8. 2023Causal-learn: Causal Discovery in Pythoncited by 108
  9. 2013Learning Equivalence Classes of Bayesian Networks Structurescited by 75
  10. 2023Can large language models build causal graphs?cited by 72
  11. 2024A Survey on Large Language Models for Critical Societal Domains: Finance, Healthcare, and Lawcited by 72
  12. 2022A Causal Framework to Quantify the Robustness of Mathematical Reasoning with Language Modelscited by 68
  13. 2020Text and Causal Inference: A Review of Using Text to Remove Confounding from Causal Estimatescited by 59
  14. 2023Integrating Large Language Model for Improved Causal Discoverycited by 54
  15. 2023Faithful Explanations of Black-box NLP Models Using LLM-generated Counterfactualscited by 44
  16. 2023Causal-Discovery Performance of ChatGPT in the context of Neuropathic Pain Diagnosiscited by 36
  17. 2014Distinguishing cause from effect using observational data: methods and benchmarkscited by 33
  18. 2021Guided Generation of Cause and Effectcited by 33
  19. 2019Neuropathic Pain Diagnosis Simulator for Causal Discovery Algorithm Evaluationcited by 32
  20. 2024Integrating Large Language Models in Causal Discovery: A Statistical Causal Approachcited by 31
  21. 2022WikiWhy: Answering and Explaining Cause-and-Effect Questionscited by 21
  22. 2024CausalChaos! Dataset for Comprehensive Causal Action Question Answering Over Longer Causal Chains Grounded in Dynamic Visual Scenescited by 13
  23. 2023Text-Transport: Toward Learning Causal Effects of Natural Languagecited by 6
  24. 2023Causal Question Answering with Reinforcement Learningcited by 5
  25. 2024Fusing LLMs and KGs for Formal Causal Reasoning behind Financial Risk Contagioncited by 5

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Cited by year (2026 to 7 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2024: 4; 2025: 13; 2026: 14.

31 papers.

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  1. 2025CF-VLM:CounterFactual Vision-Language Fine-tuningcited by 57
  2. 2024Causality for Large Language Modelscited by 24
  3. 2025CounterBench: Evaluating and Improving Counterfactual Reasoning in Large Language Modelscited by 19
  4. 2025Mitigating Hallucinations in Large Language Models via Causal Reasoningcited by 13
  5. 2025CausalRAG: Integrating Causal Graphs into Retrieval-Augmented Generationcited by 12
  6. 2025Simulating Society Requires Simulating Thoughtcited by 12
  7. 2024Mitigating Propensity Bias of Large Language Models for Recommender Systemscited by 8
  8. 2025A Survey on Enhancing Causal Reasoning Ability of Large Language Modelscited by 8
  9. 2024Counterfactual Causal Inference in Natural Language with Large Language Modelscited by 7
  10. 2024LLM4GRN: Discovering Causal Gene Regulatory Networks with LLMs -- Evaluation through Synthetic Data Generationcited by 7
  11. 2025CAUSAL3D: A Comprehensive Benchmark for Causal Learning from Visual Datacited by 7
  12. 2025Counterfactual Reasoning for Steerable Pluralistic Value Alignment of Large Language Modelscited by 5
19 more
  1. 2025GraphLocator: Graph-guided Causal Reasoning for Issue Localizationcited by 4
  2. 2025Towards Reasonable Concept Bottleneck Modelscited by 2
  3. 2025Deploying AI for Signal Processing education: Selected challenges and intriguing opportunitiescited by 1
  4. 2026Benchmarking LLMs for Pairwise Causal Discovery in Biomedical and Multi-Domain Contextscited by 1
  5. 2026CASSANDRA: Programmatic and Probabilistic Learning and Inference for Stochastic World Modelingcited by 1
  6. 2026Reforming the Mechanism: Editing Reasoning Patterns in LLMs with Circuit Reshapingcited by 1
  7. 2026LLM Explainability with Counterfactual Chains and Causal Graphscited by 1
  8. 2025Mitigating Hidden Confounding by Progressive Confounder Imputation via Large Language Modelscited by 0
  9. 2025ChainReaction: Causal Chain-Guided Reasoning for Modular and Explainable Causal-Why Video Question Answeringcited by 0
  10. 2026Making medical vision-language models think causally across modalities with retrieval-augmented cross-modal reasoningcited by 0
  11. 2026DMCD: Semantic-Statistical Framework for Causal Discoverycited by 0
  12. 2026Why Prompt Optimization Works, and Why It Sometimes Doesn't: A Causal-Inspired Edit-Level Analysiscited by 0
  13. 2026Evaluating Bivariate Causal Statements Based on Mutual Compatibilitycited by 0
  14. 2026KG-SoftMAP: Soft Knowledge-Graph Priors for Bayesian Network Structure Learning from Sparse Discrete Datacited by 0
  15. 2026CausalSmith: A Formally Grounded, Self-Improving Agentic Framework for Automated Research in Causal Inferencecited by 0
  16. 2026CausalVerify: End-to-End Verification of Causal Analyses by Language Modelscited by 0
  17. 2026Vision: Data-Centric Anchoring for Robust and Interpretable Agentic AIcited by 0
  18. 2026Contextual Causality with Large Language Models: A Surveycited by 0
  19. 2026Externalized CPDAG Summaries Improve LLM Causal Deductioncited by 0

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