[mlthoughts2018]

Though the authors mentions that one comment of Pearl, all of the causal inference / graphical model work takes the opposite stance.

The popular academic writing in that field claims everyone else is being arrogant. It’s not a statement that Pearl is arrogant for dismissing huge chunks if ML, rather that since causal inference is such a cure-all, then everyone else is arrogant for not dropping everything to use it everywhere.

There’s no spirit i this article of saying, “boy it looked like a short-sighted criticism of ML, but now that I look at it, the causal inference people are right after all, and ML people are wrong.”

It may try to disingenuously frame it that way, but this is not what they are saying.