The Causal Mindset Handbook

2

Causation versus Prediction

“If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail” – the law of the instrument, by Abraham Maslow

This classic saying perfectly illustrates the current landscape of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (AI/ML). Today, ML (a family of models within AI) is in high demand. From research to industry, people tend to focus on those exciting new models to solve every problem.

ML is primarily used for prediction, and it is incredibly good at it. It detects patterns within large and complex datasets. Let’s call this type of AI: predictive AI or predictive ML. I will use this terminology to ensure that we are excluding causal AI or causal ML, which I will discuss later in this chapter.

Predictive inference ...