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In this paper, we propose Selection and Pooling with Large Language Models (SPILL), an intuitive, domain-adaptive method for intent clustering without fine-tuning. Existing embeddings-based clustering methods rely on a few labeled examples or unsupervised fine-tuning to optimize results for each new dataset, which makes them less generalizable to multiple datasets. Our goal is to make these existing embedders more generalizable to new domain datasets without further fine-tuning. Inspired by our theoretical derivation and simulation results on the effectiveness of sampling and pooling techniques, we view the clustering task as a small-scale selection problem. A good solution to this problem is associated with better clustering performance. Accordingly, we propose a two-stage approach: First, for each utterance (referred to as the seed), we derive its embedding using an existing embedder. Then, we apply a distance metric to select a pool of candidates close to the seed. Because the embedder is not optimized for new datasets, in the second stage, we use an LLM to further select utterances from these candidates that share the same intent as the seed. Finally, we pool these selected candidates with the seed to derive a refined embedding for the seed. We found that our method generally outperforms directly using an embedder, and it achieves comparable results to other state-of-the-art studies, even those that use much larger models and require fine-tuning, showing its strength and efficiency. Our results indicate that our method enables existing embedders to be further improved without additional fine-tuning, making them more adaptable to new domain datasets. Additionally, viewing the clustering task as a small-scale selection problem gives the potential of using LLMs to customize clustering tasks according to the user&#39;s goals.

ACL 2025

SPILL: Zero-shot Intent Clustering based on Selection and Pooling with Large Language Models

domain adpatation

text clustering

low resource

It is my great pleasure and honor to welcome you to the 64th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL 2026), held in San Diego, California, USA, July 2–7, 2026. ACL 2026 continues our fields tradition of excellence in scholarship, innovation, and inclusivity, and I am deeply grateful to the many volunteers who have worked tirelessly to bring this event to life.

It is exciting to see the many developments in the field reflected at our conference, such as the advancement of large language models (born out of our community) into many application directions. This is not without challenges, partly due to unsolved problems, and partly due to misuse of the technology. All this is reflected well at ACL 2026. The conference also reflects that the field is not only about advancing technology, but also the science of fundamentally understanding language and how it is use by many different speaker communities. 
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ACL 2026

The 64th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL 2026) will take place in San Diego, California, from July 2 - 7, 2026.

In this paper, we propose Selection and Pooling with Large Language Models (SPILL), an intuitive, domain-adaptive method for intent clustering without fine-tuning. Existing embeddings-based clustering methods rely on a few labeled examples or unsupervised fine-tuning to optimize results for each new dataset, which makes them less generalizable to multiple datasets. Our goal is to make these existing embedders more generalizable to new domain datasets without further fine-tuning. Inspired by our theoretical derivation and simulation results on the effectiveness of sampling and pooling techniques, we view the clustering task as a small-scale selection problem. A good solution to this problem is associated with better clustering performance. Accordingly, we propose a two-stage approach: First, for each utterance (referred to as the seed), we derive its embedding using an existing embedder. Then, we apply a distance metric to select a pool of candidates close to the seed. Because the embedder is not optimized for new datasets, in the second stage, we use an LLM to further select utterances from these candidates that share the same intent as the seed. Finally, we pool these selected candidates with the seed to derive a refined embedding for the seed. We found that our method generally outperforms directly using an embedder, and it achieves comparable results to other state-of-the-art studies, even those that use much larger models and require fine-tuning, showing its strength and efficiency. Our results indicate that our method enables existing embedders to be further improved without additional fine-tuning, making them more adaptable to new domain datasets. Additionally, viewing the clustering task as a small-scale selection problem gives the potential of using LLMs to customize clustering tasks according to the user's goals.

poster

### Welcome to The 63rd Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL 2025)

Message from the General Chair: 
*It is my great pleasure and honor to welcome you to the 63rd Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL 2025), held in beautiful Vienna, Austria, from July 27 to August 1, 2025. ACL2025continues our field’s tradition of excellence in scholarship, innovation, and inclusivity, and I am deeply grateful to the many volunteers who have worked tirelessly to bring this event to life.* 
[Read more](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GI_hvOpjswAuYdUTromfeDiPpCcqidwg/view?usp=sharing)

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Welcome to The 63rd Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL 2025)

Large language models (LLMs) excel in problem-solving but require training data with diverse reasoning processes. Existing methods mainly optimize instruction-response pairs but lack a systematic design for the underlying reasoning structure. This paper proposes RSS: a Reasoning Structure driven data Synthesis method. We first proactively develop a hierarchical GFlowNet to construct reasoning structures efficiently through a coarse-to-fine directed acyclic graph (DAG) growth process. Then reasoning DAGs are leveraged to actively guide the instruction generation via an iterative suggester-editor workflow and enhance response quality using a structure-aware strategy. Experiments show that LLMs trained on our synthetic datasets achieve 48.50%, 84.00%, 79.90% for AlpacaEval2, GSM8K and HumanEval, outperforming existing data synthesis methods.

Enhanced Data Synthesis for LLM through Reasoning Structures Generated by Hierarchical GFlowNet

Aligning small language models (SLMs) with human values typically involves distilling preference knowledge from large language models (LLMs). However, existing distillation methods model preference knowledge in teacher LLMs by comparing pairwise responses, overlooking the extent of difference between responses. This limitation hinders student SLMs from capturing the nuanced preferences for multiple responses. In this paper, we propose a Preference-Aligned Distillation (PAD) framework, which models teacher's preference knowledge as a probability distribution over all potential preferences, thereby providing more nuanced supervisory signals. Our insight in developing PAD is rooted in the demonstration that language models can serve as reward functions, reflecting their intrinsic preferences. Based on this, PAD comprises three key steps: (1) sampling diverse responses using high-temperature; (2) computing rewards for both teacher and student to construct their intrinsic preference; and (3) training the student's intrinsic preference distribution to align with the teacher's. Experiments on four mainstream alignment benchmarks demonstrate that PAD consistently and significantly outperforms existing approaches, achieving over 20% improvement on AlpacaEval 2 and Arena-Hard, indicating superior alignment with human preferences. Notably, on MT-Bench, using the \textsc{Gemma} model family, the student trained by PAD surpasses its teacher, further validating the effectiveness of our PAD.

Capturing Nuanced Preferences: Preference-Aligned Distillation for Small Language Models

Large language models (LLMs) have demonstrated remarkable capabilities in various domains, particularly in system 1 tasks, yet the intricacies of their problem-solving mechanisms in system 2 tasks are not sufficiently explored. Recent research on System2-to-System1 methods surge, exploring the System 2 reasoning knowledge via inference-time computation and compressing the explored knowledge into System 1 process. In this paper, we focus on code generation, which is a representative System 2 task, and identify two primary challenges: (1) the complex hidden reasoning processes and (2) the heterogeneous data distributions that complicate the exploration and training of robust LLM solvers. To tackle these issues, we propose a novel BDC framework that explores insightful System 2 knowledge of LLMs using a MC-Tree-Of-Agents algorithm with mutual \textbf{B}oosting, \textbf{D}isentangles the heterogeneous training data for composable LoRA-experts, and obtain \textbf{C}ustomized problem solver for each data instance with an input-aware hypernetwork to weight over the LoRA-experts, offering effectiveness, flexibility, and robustness. This framework leverages multiple LLMs through mutual verification and boosting, integrated into a Monte-Carlo Tree Search process enhanced by reflection-based pruning and refinement. Additionally, we introduce the DisenLora algorithm, which clusters heterogeneous data to fine-tune LLMs into composable Lora experts, enabling the adaptive generation of customized problem solvers through an input-aware hypernetwork. Our contributions include the identification of critical challenges in existing methodologies, the development of the MC-Tree-of-Agents algorithm for insightful data collection, and the creation of a robust and flexible solution for code generation. This work lays the groundwork for advancing LLM capabilities in complex reasoning tasks, offering a novel System2-to-System1 solution.

Boost, Disentangle, and Customize: A Robust System2-to-System1 Pipeline for Code Generation

Generating knowledge-intensive and comprehensive long texts, such as encyclopedia articles, remains significant challenges for Large Language Models. It requires not only the precise integration of facts but also the maintenance of thematic coherence throughout the article. Existing methods, such as multi-agent discussion, often struggle with issues like hallucinations, topic incoherence, and significant latency. To address these challenges, we propose RAPID, an efficient **R**etrieval-**A**ugmented long text generation framework with writing **P**lanning and **I**nformation **D**iscovery. RAPID consists of three main modules: (1) Retrieval-augmented preliminary outline generation to reduce hallucinations, (2) Attribute-constrained search for efficient information discovery, (3) Plan-guided article generation for enhanced coherence. Extensive experiments on our newly compiled benchmark dataset, FreshWiki-2024, demonstrate that RAPID significantly outperforms state-of-the-art methods across a wide range of evaluation metrics (\eg long-text generation, outline quality, latency, etc). Our work provides a robust and efficient solution to the challenges of automated long-text generation.

RAPID: Efficient Retrieval-Augmented Long Text Generation with Writing Planning and Information Discovery

LLM providers typically offer multiple LLM tiers, varying in performance and price. As NLP tasks become more complex and modularized, selecting the suitable LLM tier for each subtask is a key challenge to balance between cost and performance. To address the problem, we introduce LLM Automatic Transmission (LLM-AT) framework that automatically selects LLM tiers without training. LLM-AT consists of Starter, Generator, and Judge. The starter selects the initial LLM tier expected to solve the given question, the generator produces a response using the LLM of the selected tier, and the judge evaluates the validity of the response. If the response is invalid, LLM-AT iteratively upgrades to a higher-tier model, generates a new response, and re-evaluates until a valid response is obtained. Additionally, we propose accuracy estimator, which enables the suitable initial LLM tier selection without training. Given an input question, accuracy estimator estimates the expected accuracy of each LLM tier by computing the valid response rate across top-k similar queries from past inference records. Experiments demonstrate that LLM-AT achieves superior performance while reducing costs, making it a practical solution for real-world applications.

Automatic Transmission for LLM Tiers: Optimizing Cost and Accuracy in Large Language Models

Multimodal entity linking (MEL), a task aimed at linking mentions within multimodal contexts to their corresponding entities in a knowledge base (KB), has attracted much attention due to its wide applications in recent years. However, existing MEL methods often rely on mention words as retrieval cues, which limits their ability to effectively utilize information from both images and text. This reliance causes MEL to struggle with accurately retrieving entities in certain scenarios, especially when the focus is on image objects or mention words are missing from the text. To solve these issues, we introduce a Visual Prompts guided Multimodal Entity Linking (VP-MEL) task. Given a text-image pair, VP-MEL aims to link a marked region (i.e., visual prompt) in an image to its corresponding entities in the knowledge base. To facilitate this task, we present a new dataset, VPWiki, specifically designed for VP-MEL. Furthermore, we propose a framework named IIER, which enhances visual feature extraction using visual prompts and leverages the pre-trained Detective-VLM model to capture latent information. Experimental results on the VPWiki dataset demonstrate that IIER outperforms baseline methods across multiple benchmarks for the VP-MEL task.

VP-MEL: Visual Prompts Guided Multimodal Entity Linking

Large Language Models (LLMs) have become ubiquitous in today's technological landscape, boasting a plethora of applications, and even endangering human jobs in complex and creative fields. One such field is journalism: LLMs are being used for summarization, generation and even fact-checking. However, in today's political landscape, LLMs could accentuate tensions if they exhibit political bias. In this work, we evaluate the political bias of the most used 15 multilingual LLMs via the Political Compass Test. We test different scenarios, where we vary the language of the prompt, while also assigning a nationality to the model. We evaluate models on the 50 most populous countries and their official languages. Our results indicate that language has a strong influence on the political ideology displayed by a model. In addition, smaller models tend to display a more stable political ideology, i.e. ideology that is less affected by variations in the prompt.

Navigating the Political Compass: Evaluating Multilingual LLMs across Languages and Nationalities

Radiology report generation (RRG) requires advanced medical image analysis, effective temporal reasoning, and accurate text generation. While multimodal large language models (MLLMs) align with pre-trained vision encoders to enhance visual-language understanding, most existing methods rely on single-image analysis or rule-based heuristics to process multiple images, failing to fully leverage temporal information in multi-modal medical datasets. In this paper, we introduce **Libra**, a temporal-aware MLLM tailored for chest X-ray report generation. Libra combines a radiology-specific image encoder with a novel Temporal Alignment Connector (**TAC**), designed to accurately capture and integrate temporal differences between paired current and prior images. Extensive experiments on the MIMIC-CXR dataset demonstrate that Libra establishes a new state-of-the-art benchmark among similarly scaled MLLMs, setting new standards in both clinical relevance and lexical accuracy. All source code and data are publicly available at: https://github.com/X-iZhang/Libra.

Libra: Leveraging Temporal Images for Biomedical Radiology Analysis

How can a monolingual English speaker determine whether an automatic translation in French is good enough to be shared? Existing MT error detection and quality estimation (QE) techniques do not address this practical scenario. We introduce AskQE, a question generation and answering framework designed to detect critical MT errors and provide actionable feedback, helping users decide whether to accept or reject MT outputs even without the knowledge of the target language. We propose an optimized version of AskQE using LLaMA-3 70B given entailed facts during question generation. We evaluate our method on the ContraTICO dataset across five language pairs, and show that AskQE effectively identifies critical MT errors with high correlations with established QE metrics. We further extend our analysis on the BioMQM dataset of naturally occurring MT errors, where we show that AskQE has higher Kendall's Tau correlation and decision accuracy with human ratings compared to other QE metrics.

AskQE: Question Answering as Automatic Evaluation for Machine Translation

Recent advancements in multimodal Large Language Models (LLMs) have significantly enhanced the automation of medical image analysis, particularly in generating radiology reports from chest X-rays (CXR). However, these models still suffer from hallucinations and clinically significant errors, limiting their reliability in real-world applications. In this study, we propose Look & Mark (L&M), a novel grounding fixation strategy that integrates radiologist eye fixations (Look) and bounding box annotations (Mark) into the LLM prompting framework. Unlike conventional fine-tuning, L&M leverages in-context learning to achieve substantial performance gains without retraining. When evaluated across multiple domain-specific and general-purpose models, L&M demonstrates significant gains, including a 1.2% improvement in overall metrics (A.AVG) for CXR-LLaVA compared to baseline prompting and a remarkable 9.2% boost for LLaVA-Med. General-purpose models also benefit from L&M combined with in-context learning, with LLaVA-OV achieving an 87.3% clinical average performance (C.AVG)—the highest among all models, even surpassing those explicitly trained for CXR report generation. Expert evaluations further confirm that L&M reduces clinically significant errors (by 0.43 average errors per report), such as false predictions and omissions, enhancing both accuracy and reliability. These findings highlight L&M's potential as a scalable and efficient solution for AI-assisted radiology, paving the way for improved diagnostic workflows in low-resource clinical settings.

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Enhanced Data Synthesis for LLM through Reasoning Structures Generated by Hierarchical GFlowNet

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