"Cause" is an everyday concept that tends to dissolve when looked at too closely. The research on causal analysis of statistical data quite sensibly does not try to define it.
Except for everyone following Pearl.
Ah, ok. Applying his definition ("variable X is a probabilistic-cause of variable Y if P(y|do(x)) != P(y) for some values x and y") to the signal generator, it says that the voltage causes the current; in the current-source version, that the current causes the voltage. That's exactly what I would say as well.
Of course, his limitation to acyclic relations excludes from his analysis systems that are only slightly more complicated, such as .
It is a commonplace that correlation does not imply causality, however eyebrow-wagglingly suggestive it may be of causal hypotheses. It is less commonly noted that causality does not imply correlation either. It is quite possible for two variables to have zero correlation, and yet for one of them to be completely determined by the other.