“The applications are enormous, from personalised medicine to handling an epidemic like Covid”

Awarded the 14th BBVA Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Information and Communication Technologies, Judea Pearl explains in this interview how his contributions revolutionized the way artificial intelligence understands causality. Through his graphical models and causal calculus, he explains how it is possible to go beyond simple correlation to answer questions about why things happen and what might happen under different conditions. His reflections show the impact of these ideas on fields as diverse as data science, medicine, economics, and automated decision-making, and how causality has become an essential tool for a more transparent and explanatory AI.

The BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Information and Communication Technologies has gone in this fourteenth edition to Judea Pearl for “bringing a modern foundation to artificial intelligence,” in the words of the selection committee.