arXivDaily arXiv每日学术速递 周一至周五更新
​通知:联邦节假日调休:哥伦布日 / 原住民日(Columbus Day / Indigenous Peoples' Day),今日(13日)无更新。
arXiv 2407.19118cs.AI

大型语言模型作为医学研究中因果推断的副驾驶

Large Language Models as Co-Pilots for Causal Inference in Medical Studies

UC Berkeley(加州大学伯克利分校);UCSF(加州大学旧金山分校);Microsoft Research(微软研究院)

Ahmed Alaa, Rachael V. Phillips, Emre Kıcıman, Laura B. Balzer, Mark van der Laan, Maya Petersen

AI总结:

本文探索将大型语言模型作为因果推断副驾驶,提出概念框架协助研究人员识别医学研究设计缺陷,并强调其在流行病学中可靠应用的挑战与机遇。

摘要:

基于真实世界临床数据(如观察性研究)的医学研究的有效性,取决于为得出医疗干预因果结论所必需的关键假设。许多已发表的研究存在缺陷,因为它们违反了这些假设并导致偏差,如残余混杂、选择偏差以及治疗与测量时间之间的错位。尽管研究人员意识到这些陷阱,但它们仍不断出现,因为在特定研究的背景下预测和解决这些问题极具挑战性,除非拥有一个规模庞大且通常难以管理的、具备广泛专业知识的跨学科团队。为了弥补这一专业知识差距,我们探索将大型语言模型(LLMs)作为副驾驶工具,协助研究人员识别破坏因果推断有效性的研究设计缺陷。我们提出了一个将LLMs作为因果副驾驶的概念框架,该框架编码了跨多个领域的领域知识,通过自然语言交互与研究人员互动,为研究设计提供情境化的辅助。我们提供了LLMs如何作为因果副驾驶发挥作用的示例,提出了将其植根于现有因果推断框架的结构化框架,并强调了在流行病学研究中调整LLMs以实现可靠应用的独特挑战与机遇。

英文摘要:

The validity of medical studies based on real-world clinical data, such as observational studies, depends on critical assumptions necessary for drawing causal conclusions about medical interventions. Many published studies are flawed because they violate these assumptions and entail biases such as residual confounding, selection bias, and misalignment between treatment and measurement times. Although researchers are aware of these pitfalls, they continue to occur because anticipating and addressing them in the context of a specific study can be challenging without a large, often unwieldy, interdisciplinary team with extensive expertise. To address this expertise gap, we explore the use of large language models (LLMs) as co-pilot tools to assist researchers in identifying study design flaws that undermine the validity of causal inferences. We propose a conceptual framework for LLMs as causal co-pilots that encode domain knowledge across various fields, engaging with researchers in natural language interactions to provide contextualized assistance in study design. We provide illustrative examples of how LLMs can function as causal co-pilots, propose a structured framework for their grounding in existing causal inference frameworks, and highlight the unique challenges and opportunities in adapting LLMs for reliable use in epidemiological research.

机构、总结、中文摘要均由AI分析而来,可能存在错误,请以论文正文为准。

↑