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Recorded on Nov 12, 2023 in Undisclosed location, Undisclosed location


From Systems Biology to Causality

Robert always loved statistics.

He went to study systems biology, driven by his desire to model natural systems.

His perspective on causal inference encompasses graphical models, Bayesian inference, reinforcement learning, generative AI and cognitive science.

It allows him to think broadly about the problems we encounter in modern AI research.

Is the reward enough and what's the next big thing in causal (generative) AI?

Let's see!

About The Guest
Robert Osazuwa Ness is a Senior Researcher at Microsoft Research. He explores how to combine causal discovery, causal inference, deep probabilistic modeling, and programming languages in search of new capabilities for AI systems.

Connect with Robert:
- Robert on Twitter/X
- Robert on LinkedIn
- Robert's web page

About The Host
Aleksander (Alex) Molak is an independent machine learning researcher, educator, entrepreneur and a best-selling author in the area of causality.

Connect with Alex:
- Alex on the Internet

Links
Find the links here

Causal Bandits Team
Project Coordinator: Taiba Malik
Video and Audio Editing: Navneet Sharma, Aleksander Molak

#causalai #causalinference #causality 

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Causal Bandits Podcast
Causal AI || Causal Machine Learning || Causal Inference & Discovery
Web: https://causalbanditspodcast.com

Connect on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aleksandermolak/
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The Causal Book: https://amzn.to/3QhsRz4

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Recorded on Sep 27, 2023 in München, Germany


From supply chain to large language models and back

Ishansh realized the potential of data when he was just 10 years old, during his time as a junior cricket player.

His journey led him to ask questions about the mechanisms behind the observed events.

 Can large language models (LLMs) help in building an industrial causal graph?

What inspires stakeholders to share their knowledge and which causal discovery algorithms have been most effective for Ishansh's supply chain use case?

Hear the insights from one of the BMW Group's fastest-rising young data science talents.

Ready?

About The Guest
Ishansh Gupta is a Lead Data Scientist at BMW Group. Previously, he worked for several companies, including a legendary German sports club SV Werder Bremen. He studied Computer Science, and co-founded an educational startup during his study years. He has supervised or supported students in various universities, including the Munich-based TUM and MIT.

Connect with Ishansh:
- Ishansh on Twitter/X
- Ishansh on LinkedIn

About The Host
Aleksander (Alex) Molak is an independent machine learning researcher, educator, entrepreneur and a best-selling author in the area of causality

Connect with Alex:
- Alex on the Internet

Links
Papers
Full list of papers here

Books
- Molak (2023) - Causal Inference and Discovery in Python
- Pearl & Mackenzie (2019) - The Book of Why

Other
- causaLens

Causal Bandits Team
Project Coordinator: Taiba Malik
Video and Audio Editing: Navneet Sharma, Aleksander

Support the show

Causal Bandits Podcast
Causal AI || Causal Machine Learning || Causal Inference & Discovery
Web: https://causalbanditspodcast.com

Connect on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aleksandermolak/
Join Causal Python Weekly: https://causalpython.io
The Causal Book: https://amzn.to/3QhsRz4

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Video version of this episode is available on YouTube
Recorded on Oct 15, 2023 in São Paulo, Brazil


Causal Inference in Fintech? For Brave and True Only

From rural Brazil to one of the country’s largest banks, Matheus’ journey could inspire many.

Similarly to our previous guest, Iyar Lin, Matheus was interested in politics, but switched to economics, where he fell in love with math.

Observing the state of the industry, he quickly realized that without causality, we cannot answer some of the most interesting business questions.

His popular online book 'Causal Inference for The Brave and True' was a side effect of his strong drive to learn causal inference and causal machine learning, while collecting as much feedback as possible along the way.

Did he succeed?

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About The Guest
Matheus Facure is a Staff Data Scientist at Nubank and the author of "Causal Inference for The Brave and True" and "Causal Inference in Python".

Connect with Matheus:
- Matheus on Twitter/X
- Matheus on LinkedIn
- Matheus's web page

About The Host
Aleksander (Alex) Molak is an independent machine learning researcher, educator, entrepreneur and a best-selling author in the area of causality

Connect with Alex:
- Alex on the Internet

Links
Books
- Facure (2023) – Causal Inference in Python
- Molak (2023) – Causal Inference and Discovery in Python


Webcasts
- AMA Webcasts

Causal Bandits Team
Project Coordinator: Taiba Malik 
Video and Audio Editing: Navneet Sharma, Aleksa

Support the show

Causal Bandits Podcast
Causal AI || Causal Machine Learning || Causal Inference & Discovery
Web: https://causalbanditspodcast.com

Connect on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aleksandermolak/
Join Causal Python Weekly: https://causalpython.io
The Causal Book: https://amzn.to/3QhsRz4

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Video version available on YouTube
Recorded on Sep 13, 2023 in Beit El'Azari, Israel


The eternal dance between the data and the model

Early in his career, Iyar realized that purely associative models cannot provide him with the answers to the questions he found most interesting.

This realization laid the groundwork for his search for methods that go beyond statistical summaries of the data.

What started as a lonely journey, led him to become a data science lead at his current company, where he fosters causal culture daily.

Iyar developed a framework that helps digital product companies make better decisions regarding their products at scale and at budget.

Here, causality is not just a concept, but a tool for change.

Ready to dive in?

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About The Guest
Iyar Lin is a Data Science Lead at Loops, where he helps customers make better decisions leveraging causal inference and machine learning methods. He holds master's degree in statistics from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Before Loops, he worked at ViaSat and SimilarWeb.

Connect with Iyar:
- Iyar on LinkedIn
- Iyar's web page

About The Host
Aleksander (Alex) Molak is an independent machine learning researcher, educator, entrepreneur and a best-selling author in the area of causality (https://amzn.to/3QhsRz4).

Connect with Alex:
- Alex on the Internet

Links
Papers
- Breiman (2001) - Statistical Modeling: The Two Cultures

Books
- Molak (2023) - Causal Inference and Discovery in Python
- Pearl et al. (2016) - Causal Inference in Statistics - A Pri

Support the show

Causal Bandits Podcast
Causal AI || Causal Machine Learning || Causal Inference & Discovery
Web: https://causalbanditspodcast.com

Connect on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aleksandermolak/
Join Causal Python Weekly: https://causalpython.io
The Causal Book: https://amzn.to/3QhsRz4

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Video version available on YouTube
Recorded on Sep 4, 2023 in London, UK


A causal bet
Darko's story begins in Eastern Europe, where his early attempts in building a business and the influence of early-stage role models shaped his attitudes and helped him move through challenging and lonely moments in his career.

See how mosquitos, Pascal programming language, and problems with generalization in vision models inspired Darko to build a company that helps some of the world's top companies streamline and deploy causal inference workflows today.

Learn how his hedge fund experience shaped his thinking about business.

Causal Bandits Extra is a series of conversations with non-technically-focused people involved in or interested in causality from business, social and other perspectives.

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About The Guest
Darko Matovski, PhD is the co-founder and CEO of causaLens, a $50M venture-backed scaleup. He holds a PhD in Computer Science and an MBA from the University of Southampton.

Connect with Darko:
- Darko Matovski on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matovski/
- causaLens web page

About The Host
Aleksander (Alex) Molak is an independent machine learning researcher, educator, entrepreneur and a best-selling author in the area of causal machine learning.

Connect with Alex:
- Alex on the Internet

Causal Bandits Team
Project Coordinator: Taiba Malik (https://www.instagram.com/taibasplay/) Video and Audio Editing: Navneet Sharma, Aleksander Molak *Action* Connect on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aleksandermolak/ Join Causal Python Weekly: https://causalpython.io Causal Bandits: https://causalbanditspodcast.com The Causal Book: https://amzn.to/3QhsRz4 *Sponsorship Disclaimer* This episode has been made possible with the support of causaLens. We appreciate their contribution to making

Support the show

Causal Bandits Podcast
Causal AI || Causal Machine Learning || Causal Inference & Discovery
Web: https://causalbanditspodcast.com

Connect on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aleksandermolak/
Join Causal Python Weekly: https://causalpython.io
The Causal Book: https://amzn.to/3QhsRz4

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Video version of this episode is available here
Recorded on Sep 5, 2023 in Oxford, UK


Have you ever wondered if we can answer seemingly unanswerable questions?

Jakob's journey into causality started when he was 12 years old.

Deeply dissatisfied with what adults had to offer when asked about the sources of causal knowledge, he started to look for the answers on his own.

He studied philosophy, politics and economics to find his place at UCL's Centre for Artificial Intelligence, where he met his future PhD advisor, Prof. Ricardo Silva.

At the center of Jakob's interests lies decision-making under partial knowledge.

He's passionate about partial identification, sensitivity analysis, and optimal experiments, yet he's far from being just a theoretician.

He implements causal ideas he finds promising in the context of material discovery at Matterhorn Studio, earlier he worked on sensitivity analysis for quasi-experimental methods at Spotify.

Want to learn what a 1000-years-old church, communism and Justin Bieber have to do with causality?

Tune in! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

About The Guest
Jakob Zeitler is a researcher at Centre for Artificial Intelligence at University College London (UCL) and a Head of R&D at Matterhorn Studio. His research focuses on partial identification, sensitivity analysis and optimal experimentation. He works on solutions for automated material design.

Connect with Jakob:
- Jakob Zeitler on Twitter/X
- Jakob Zeitler on LinkedIn
- Jakob Zeitler's web page

About The Host
Aleksander (Alex) Molak is an independent machine learning researcher, educator, entrepreneur and a best-selling author in the area of causality.

Connect with Alex:
- Alex on the Internet

Links

Support the show

Causal Bandits Podcast
Causal AI || Causal Machine Learning || Causal Inference & Discovery
Web: https://causalbanditspodcast.com

Connect on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aleksandermolak/
Join Causal Python Weekly: https://causalpython.io
The Causal Book: https://amzn.to/3QhsRz4

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Video version available on YouTube
Recorded on Nov 29, 2023 in Cambridge, UK


Should we continue to ask why?

Alicia's machine learning journey began with... causal machine learning.

Starting with econometrics, she discovered semi-parametric methods and the Pearlian framework at later stages of her career and incorporated both in her everyday toolkit.

She loves to understand why things work, which inspires her to ask "why" not only in the context of treatment effects, but also in the context of general machine learning. Her papers on heterogeneous treatment effect estimators and model evaluation bring unique perspectives to the community.

Her recent NeurIPS paper on double descent aims at bridging the gap between statistical learning theory and a counter-intuitive phenomenon of double descent observed in complex machine learning architectures.

Ready to dive in? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ About The Guest
Alicia Curth is a Machine Learning Researcher and a final year PhD student at The van der Schaar Lab at Cambridge University. Her research is focused on causality, understanding machine learning methods from ground up and personalized medicine. Her works are frequently accepted at best machine learning conferences (she's a true serial NeurIPS author).

Connect with Alicia:
- Alicia on Twitter/X
- Alicia on LinkedIn
- Alicia 's web page

About The Host
Aleksander (Alex) Molak is an independent machine learning researcher, educator, entrepreneur and a best-selling author in the area of causality.

Connect with Alex: - Alex on the Internet

Links
See here  for the full list of links

Causal Bandits Team 
Project Coordinator: Taiba Mal

Support the show

Causal Bandits Podcast
Causal AI || Causal Machine Learning || Causal Inference & Discovery
Web: https://causalbanditspodcast.com

Connect on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aleksandermolak/
Join Causal Python Weekly: https://causalpython.io
The Causal Book: https://amzn.to/3QhsRz4

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Video version available on YouTube
Recorded on Aug 29, 2023 in München, Germany


Can we meaningfully talk about causality in dynamical systems?

Some people are puzzled when it comes to dynamical systems and the idea of causation.

Dynamical systems well-known in physics, social sciences, and biology are often thought of as a special family of systems, where it might be difficult to meaningfully talk about causal direction.

Naftali Weinberger devoted his career to examining the relationships between system dynamics, causality and the phenomena known broadly as "complexity".

We explore what does "intervention" mean in a dynamical system and we deconstruct common intuitions about causality and system's equilibrium.

We discuss the importance of time scales when defining a causal system, analyze what could have inspired Bertrand Russell to say that causality is a "relic of a bygone age" and ponder the phenomenon of emergence.

Finally, Naftali shares his advice for those of us just starting exploring the uncharted territory of causal inference and discovery.

Warning: this conversation might bend your sense of reality.

Use with caution!

Ready to dive in?


About The Guest
Naftali Weinberger, PhD is a Researcher at Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy at LMU. His research is focused on causality, dynamical systems and fairness. He works with scientists, researchers and philosophers around the globe helping them address challenges in diverse fields like climate change, psychometrics, fairness and more. 

Connect with Naftali: 

• Naftali on Twitter/X
• Naftali on BlueSky 
• Naftali's web page

About The Host
Aleksander (Alex) Molak is an independent machine learning researcher, educator, entrepreneur and a best-selling author in the area of causality.

Connect with Alex:

Support the show

Causal Bandits Podcast
Causal AI || Causal Machine Learning || Causal Inference & Discovery
Web: https://causalbanditspodcast.com

Connect on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aleksandermolak/
Join Causal Python Weekly: https://causalpython.io
The Causal Book: https://amzn.to/3QhsRz4

Send us a text

Support the show

Video version available on YouTube
Recorded on Aug 27, 2023 in München, Germany


Is Causality Necessary For Autonomous Driving?

From a child experimenter to a lead engineer working on a general causal inference engine, Daniel's choices have been marked by intense curiosity and the courage to take risks.

Daniel shares how working with mathematicians differs from working with physicists and how having both on the team makes the team stronger.

We discuss the journey Daniel and his team took to build a system that allows  performing the abduction step on a broad class of models in a computationally efficient way - a prerequisite to build a practically valuable counterfactual reasoning system.

Finally, Daniel shares his experiences in communicating with stakeholders and offers  advice for those of us who only begin their journey with causality.

Ready?

About The Guest
Daniel Ebenhöch is a Lead Engineer at e:fs Techhub. His research is focused on autonomous driving and automated decision-making. He leads a diverse team of scientists and developers, working on a general SCM-based causal inference engine.

Connect with Daniel:
- Daniel Ebenhöch on LinkedIn

About The Host
Aleksander (Alex) Molak is an independent machine learning researcher, educator, entrepreneur and a best-selling author in the area of causality.

Connect with Alex:
- Alex on the Internet

Links
Packages
- PGMpy (https://pgmpy.org/)

Books
- Molak (2023) - Causal Inference and Discovery in Python
- Pearl (2009) - Causality
- Peters et al. (2017) - Elements of Causal Inference: Foundations and Learning Algorithms

Causal Bandits Team
Project Coordinator: Taiba Malik
Video and Audio Editing: Na

Support the show

Causal Bandits Podcast
Causal AI || Causal Machine Learning || Causal Inference & Discovery
Web: https://causalbanditspodcast.com

Connect on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aleksandermolak/
Join Causal Python Weekly: https://causalpython.io
The Causal Book: https://amzn.to/3QhsRz4

Send us a text

Support the show

Video version available on YouTube
Recorded on Aug 25, 2023 in Berlin, Germany


Is Marketing Intrinsically Causal?

After spending 5 years talking to mathematicians, Juan decided to look for new opportunities that would offer him more immediate impact on the world.

Little did he know that this journey will lead him to become a Senior Data Scientist at Wolt - one of the global food delivery leaders with operations in 25 countries.

In this episode we discuss Juan's journey towards data science, how causality was close to his heart from the very beginning and why starting simple is a good thing.

Juan shares how his background in physics and advanced geometry helps him tackle causal problems he faces daily in his work in the fields of marketing and pricing.

"It's fundamental for decision-making" - he says when asked about the future of causal modeling and causal AI.

We discuss the consequences of ignoring the causal structure in marketing problems.

Finally, Juan shares how inaccurate world models contributed to a distaste for wearing gloves by someone dear to him.

Ready to dive in?


About The Guest
Juan Orduz, Phd is a Senior Data Scientist at Wolt. He is a blogger and an open source contributor. Juan holds a PhD in geometric analysis.
Connect with Juan:
- Juan on LinkedIn
- Juan on Twitter/X
- Juan's Blog 

About The Host
Aleksander (Alex) Molak is an independent machine learning researcher, educator, entrepreneur and a best-selling author in the area of causality.
Connect with Alex:
- Alex on the Internet

Links (see here for the full list)

Causal Bandits Team
Project Coordinator: Taiba Malik
Video Editors: Navneet S.

Support the show

Causal Bandits Podcast
Causal AI || Causal Machine Learning || Causal Inference & Discovery
Web: https://causalbanditspodcast.com

Connect on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aleksandermolak/
Join Causal Python Weekly: https://causalpython.io
The Causal Book: https://amzn.to/3QhsRz4