Professor Judea Pearl and 2-year anniversary of “The Book of Why”

On May 20, 2018, “The Book of Why” by professor Judea Pearl was published.

Governor Michael Dukakis said on March 20, 2020:

“The Book of Why: The New Science of Cause and Effect,” provides us with the new tools needed to navigate the uncharted waters of causality for students of statistics, economics, social sciences, mathematics and most urgently today, epidemiology.” The Michael Dukakis institute, under the umbrella of its Artificial Intelligence World Society Innovation Network (AIWS-IN) AIWS.net, is calling for artificial intelligence to be developed and deployed in ways that benefit all mankind. Professor Pearl will serve as Mentor to AIWS Innovation Network programs in support of these goals. To be sure, the AIWS.net is eager to explore and apply your Causal Models to the decision-making process by national governments as well as individual citizens.”

The Boston Global Forum and Michael Dukakis Institute honored Professor Judea Pearl with the 2020 World Leader in AIWS Award and as a Mentor of AIWS Innovation Network (AIWS.net).

On May 24, 2020, Professor Judea Pearl discussed on Twitter:

Judea Pearl:

“Embroiled in choreographing Causal Science Centers I’ve almost forgotten that May 20 marks the 2-year anniversary of the publication of “the Book of WHY” #Bookofwhy. Dana and I are grateful to all readers who contributed to our understanding that the book has made a dent on scientific methodology.

As a token appreciation to readers of “the Book of WHY”, I am sharing the slides I used in a seminar titled: “The Silent History of Cause and Effect” given at UCLA History of Science Reading Group. Feel free to use any of these historical-philosophical snippets: http://web.cs.ucla.edu/~kaoru/hpass-ucla-dec2019-bw.pdf.”

Eoghan Flanagan:

“Prof Pearl I would suggest that the private sector would be more interested in funding causality research than “data science”. Businesses care about the do-calculus!

Judea Pearl:

“I thought so too. So where are the Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerbergs of today? Are visionary business leaders a thing of the past? I am not talking “causality research”; we have it. I am talking Causal Science Centers, to educate next generation Phd’s for decision making.”

Elias Barenboim:

“I recently tweet about Ray Dalio & Causal Inference (CI), Bill Gates appears to be aware of the “Book of Why”. I talked briefly w/@finkdI earlier thi year about it. Elon Musk seem aware of the limits of AI. They may be interested in being serious about CI.”

“Insightful note by investor Ray Dalio @RayDalio on the necessity of understanding cause-effect relations to make robust decision-making & the insufficiency of machine learning:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrxYhv2O3wU&t=21m40s

We do have a language and tools to encode this understanding today.”

Judea Pearl:

“These wise words of Ray Dalio seem to be taken straight from the manifesto of the first “Causal Science Center”. Hey, Ray Dalio, would you be the Center’s first spokesman? Honorary President? Beneficiary? The algorithms you spoke about are ready to serve humanity. “

Nguyen Anh Tuan:

“Dear Judea, Michael Dukakis Institute and AIWS.net put Modern Causal Inference as course of AI World Society Leadership Master Degree.

Congratulations.  We will introduce in AIWS Weekly Newsletter on Monday morning May 26, 2020. AIWS.net with Modern Causal Inference, promotes “the Book of WHY”, encourages research, invests in Causal Inference, applies Causal Inference to develop Decision Making Systems.”