{"about":{"site":"https://codewithpapers.app","non_affiliation":"Code with Papers and Syntology are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Papers with Code, Meta, or the pwc-archive mirror.","licence":"CC BY-SA 4.0","licence_url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode","attribution":"https://codewithpapers.app/attribution","modified":"archive material modified by Syntology; see the attribution page"},"url":"/paper/causal-parrots-large-language-models-may-talk","title":"Causal Parrots: Large Language Models May Talk Causality But Are Not Causal","arxiv_id":"2308.13067","date":"2023-08-24","proceeding":null,"authors":["Matej Zečević","Moritz Willig","Devendra Singh Dhami","Kristian Kersting"],"abstract":"Some argue scale is all what is needed to achieve AI, covering even causal models. We make it clear that large language models (LLMs) cannot be causal and give reason onto why sometimes we might feel otherwise. To this end, we define and exemplify a new subgroup of Structural Causal Model (SCM) that we call meta SCM which encode causal facts about other SCM within their variables. We conjecture that in the cases where LLM succeed in doing causal inference, underlying was a respective meta SCM that exposed correlations between causal facts in natural language on whose data the LLM was ultimately trained. If our hypothesis holds true, then this would imply that LLMs are like parrots in that they simply recite the causal knowledge embedded in the data. Our empirical analysis provides favoring evidence that current LLMs are even weak `causal parrots.'","url_abs":"https://arxiv.org/abs/2308.13067v1","url_pdf":"https://arxiv.org/pdf/2308.13067v1.pdf","source":{"archive":"pwc-archive (Hugging Face), CC BY-SA 4.0","snapshot":"2025-07-28","licence_url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode","row_kind":"abstracts"},"code_links":[{"paper_slug":"causal-parrots-large-language-models-may-talk","repo_url":"https://github.com/moritzwillig/causalparrots","is_official":1,"mentioned_in_paper":1,"mentioned_in_github":0,"framework":"pytorch","reach":{"status":"ok"}}],"tasks":[{"task_slug":"causal-inference","task_name":"Causal Inference"}],"methods":[],"datasets_introduced":[],"methods_introduced":[],"results":[],"syntology":{"syntology_url":"https://syntology.ai/paper/2308.13067","atlas_url":"https://app.syntology.ai/?focus=2308.13067","mcp":{"get_harvested_code_for_paper":{"arxiv_id":"2308.13067"}},"developers":"https://syntology.ai/developers","read_at":"2026-09-25T09:33:49+00:00","read_at_is":"when the build read Syntology's graph, not when any sample ran","claim":"Per-sample execution status on synthesized fixtures; not a correctness claim about the paper. Samples come from repositories linked to the paper, official or community; repo_kind says which.","repos":[{"provenance":"external:paperswithcode_snapshot_2025-07-28","url":"https://github.com/moritzwillig/causalparrots","reach":{"status":"ok"}}],"summary":{"ran":9,"unverified":1},"by_repo_kind":{"official":{"samples":10,"ran":9,"repositories":1}},"repo_kind_vocabulary":{"official":"The archive marks this repository official for the paper","named_in_paper":"The archive records that the paper mentions this repository; it is not marked official","listed":"In the archive's code links for this paper, not marked official and not recorded as mentioned in the paper","found_in_text":"Syntology found this repository in the paper's own text; whether it is the authors' implementation is not asserted","community":"Not in the archive's code links for this paper; a community repository Syntology harvested"},"n_pointer_only_for_licence":10,"samples":[{"code_sha256_prefix":"799fc90727ef797f","entry":"categorize_answers","repo":"moritzwillig/causalparrots","repo_kind":"official","path":"answer_helpers.py","file_url":"https://github.com/moritzwillig/causalparrots/blob/HEAD/answer_helpers.py","link_basis":"first_harvest_node","language":"python","status":"ran","verification_level":1,"contract_check":null,"metamorphic_tier":null,"behaviour_fingerprint":false,"licence":"NONE","inline_ok":false,"mcp_get_code":{"code_sha256":"799fc90727ef797f"}},{"code_sha256_prefix":"171d3d056cafd541","entry":"concept_to_string","repo":"moritzwillig/causalparrots","repo_kind":"official","path":"embeddings/generate_conceptnet_queries.py","file_url":"https://github.com/moritzwillig/causalparrots/blob/HEAD/embeddings/generate_conceptnet_queries.py","link_basis":"first_harvest_node","language":"python","status":"ran","verification_level":1,"contract_check":null,"metamorphic_tier":null,"behaviour_fingerprint":true,"licence":"NONE","inline_ok":false,"mcp_get_code":{"code_sha256":"171d3d056cafd541"}},{"code_sha256_prefix":"37ce7e96c05bf777","entry":"create_cot_chain_prefix","repo":"moritzwillig/causalparrots","repo_kind":"official","path":"generate_causal_chains.py","file_url":"https://github.com/moritzwillig/causalparrots/blob/HEAD/generate_causal_chains.py","link_basis":"first_harvest_node","language":"python","status":"ran","verification_level":1,"contract_check":null,"metamorphic_tier":null,"behaviour_fingerprint":true,"licence":"NONE","inline_ok":false,"mcp_get_code":{"code_sha256":"37ce7e96c05bf777"}},{"code_sha256_prefix":"5989413e86e2ba89","entry":"create_cot_world_prefix","repo":"moritzwillig/causalparrots","repo_kind":"official","path":"generate_causal_world.py","file_url":"https://github.com/moritzwillig/causalparrots/blob/HEAD/generate_causal_world.py","link_basis":"first_harvest_node","language":"python","status":"ran","verification_level":1,"contract_check":null,"metamorphic_tier":null,"behaviour_fingerprint":true,"licence":"NONE","inline_ok":false,"mcp_get_code":{"code_sha256":"5989413e86e2ba89"}},{"code_sha256_prefix":"cf96cd45c8781403","entry":"generate_causal_chains_questions","repo":"moritzwillig/causalparrots","repo_kind":"official","path":"generate_causal_chains.py","file_url":"https://github.com/moritzwillig/causalparrots/blob/HEAD/generate_causal_chains.py","link_basis":"first_harvest_node","language":"python","status":"ran","verification_level":1,"contract_check":null,"metamorphic_tier":null,"behaviour_fingerprint":true,"licence":"NONE","inline_ok":false,"mcp_get_code":{"code_sha256":"cf96cd45c8781403"}},{"code_sha256_prefix":"0d55eaf3f0845fad","entry":"generate_causal_chains_questions","repo":"moritzwillig/causalparrots","repo_kind":"official","path":"generate_causal_world.py","file_url":"https://github.com/moritzwillig/causalparrots/blob/HEAD/generate_causal_world.py","link_basis":"first_harvest_node","language":"python","status":"ran","verification_level":1,"contract_check":null,"metamorphic_tier":null,"behaviour_fingerprint":true,"licence":"NONE","inline_ok":false,"mcp_get_code":{"code_sha256":"0d55eaf3f0845fad"}},{"code_sha256_prefix":"4bdcec2597ee9663","entry":"get_response_flags","repo":"moritzwillig/causalparrots","repo_kind":"official","path":"answer_helpers.py","file_url":"https://github.com/moritzwillig/causalparrots/blob/HEAD/answer_helpers.py","link_basis":"first_harvest_node","language":"python","status":"ran","verification_level":1,"contract_check":null,"metamorphic_tier":null,"behaviour_fingerprint":false,"licence":"NONE","inline_ok":false,"mcp_get_code":{"code_sha256":"4bdcec2597ee9663"}},{"code_sha256_prefix":"676bd9157ab0778a","entry":"read_causal_concepts","repo":"moritzwillig/causalparrots","repo_kind":"official","path":"embeddings/generate_conceptnet_queries.py","file_url":"https://github.com/moritzwillig/causalparrots/blob/HEAD/embeddings/generate_conceptnet_queries.py","link_basis":"first_harvest_node","language":"python","status":"ran","verification_level":1,"contract_check":null,"metamorphic_tier":null,"behaviour_fingerprint":false,"licence":"NONE","inline_ok":false,"mcp_get_code":{"code_sha256":"676bd9157ab0778a"}},{"code_sha256_prefix":"ee2e13c98fdc5272","entry":"sanitize","repo":"moritzwillig/causalparrots","repo_kind":"official","path":"embeddings/prepare_concept_net_data.py","file_url":"https://github.com/moritzwillig/causalparrots/blob/HEAD/embeddings/prepare_concept_net_data.py","link_basis":"first_harvest_node","language":"python","status":"ran","verification_level":1,"contract_check":null,"metamorphic_tier":null,"behaviour_fingerprint":true,"licence":"NONE","inline_ok":false,"mcp_get_code":{"code_sha256":"ee2e13c98fdc5272"}},{"code_sha256_prefix":"d9e877d269cda144","entry":"load_compact_answers","repo":"moritzwillig/causalparrots","repo_kind":"official","path":"answer_helpers.py","file_url":"https://github.com/moritzwillig/causalparrots/blob/HEAD/answer_helpers.py","link_basis":"first_harvest_node","language":"python","status":"unverified","verification_level":0,"contract_check":null,"metamorphic_tier":null,"behaviour_fingerprint":false,"licence":"NONE","inline_ok":false,"mcp_get_code":{"code_sha256":"d9e877d269cda144"}}]},"arxiv_metadata":null,"syntology_extracted_results":null}