Probabilistic Semantics for Qualitative Influences
Abstract
What's in an influence link? To answer this foundational question, I propose a semantics for qualitative influences: a positively influences b if and only if the posterior distribution for b given a increases with a in the sense of first-order stochastic dominance. By requiring that this condition hold in all contexts, we gain the ability to perform inference across chains of qualitative influences. Under sets of basic desiderata, the proposed definition is necessary as well as sufficient for this desirable computational property.
Cite
Text
Wellman. "Probabilistic Semantics for Qualitative Influences." AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence, 1987.Markdown
[Wellman. "Probabilistic Semantics for Qualitative Influences." AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence, 1987.](https://mlanthology.org/aaai/1987/wellman1987aaai-probabilistic/)BibTeX
@inproceedings{wellman1987aaai-probabilistic,
title = {{Probabilistic Semantics for Qualitative Influences}},
author = {Wellman, Michael P.},
booktitle = {AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence},
year = {1987},
pages = {662-664},
url = {https://mlanthology.org/aaai/1987/wellman1987aaai-probabilistic/}
}