@inproceedings{kong-etal-2026-modeling,
title = "Modeling and Solving Stable Matching under Probabilistic Preferences with Large Language Models",
author = "Kong, Yuqi and
Liu, Shiyu and
Li, Jiaxu and
Liu, Hongtao and
Qi, Qi and
Shen, Weiran",
editor = "Liakata, Maria and
Moreira, Viviane P. and
Zhang, Jiajun and
Jurgens, David",
booktitle = "Findings of the {A}ssociation for {C}omputational {L}inguistics: {ACL} 2026",
month = jul,
year = "2026",
address = "San Diego, California, United States",
publisher = "Association for Computational Linguistics",
url = "https://aclanthology.org/2026.findings-acl.1845/",
pages = "37021--37033",
ISBN = "979-8-89176-395-1",
abstract = "Large language models (LLMs) have recently demonstrated strong capability in understanding and simulating humans' decisions, suggesting a new way to use LLMs as tools to study social systems. We study two-sided-matching markets, such as dating and job matching. Classical matching models assume deterministic, strict preferences, which violate real-world setting. We focus on stable matching under stochastic decision behavior and use LLMs to simulate human-like preferences and probabilistic choice patterns. Based on this, we introduce Expected Blocking Pairs (EBP), a continuous measure to quantify stability that generalizes the classic blocking pair notion. We further propose a Hybrid GS{--}LLM matching method that integrates the celebrated Gale{--}Shapley (GS) algorithm with probabilistic acceptance decisions. Experiments show that the proposed hybrid method outperforms classical baselines in terms of stability, suggesting that LLMs provide a principled tool for modeling human decisions and for improving robustness of matching under uncertainty."
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<abstract>Large language models (LLMs) have recently demonstrated strong capability in understanding and simulating humans’ decisions, suggesting a new way to use LLMs as tools to study social systems. We study two-sided-matching markets, such as dating and job matching. Classical matching models assume deterministic, strict preferences, which violate real-world setting. We focus on stable matching under stochastic decision behavior and use LLMs to simulate human-like preferences and probabilistic choice patterns. Based on this, we introduce Expected Blocking Pairs (EBP), a continuous measure to quantify stability that generalizes the classic blocking pair notion. We further propose a Hybrid GS–LLM matching method that integrates the celebrated Gale–Shapley (GS) algorithm with probabilistic acceptance decisions. Experiments show that the proposed hybrid method outperforms classical baselines in terms of stability, suggesting that LLMs provide a principled tool for modeling human decisions and for improving robustness of matching under uncertainty.</abstract>
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%0 Conference Proceedings
%T Modeling and Solving Stable Matching under Probabilistic Preferences with Large Language Models
%A Kong, Yuqi
%A Liu, Shiyu
%A Li, Jiaxu
%A Liu, Hongtao
%A Qi, Qi
%A Shen, Weiran
%Y Liakata, Maria
%Y Moreira, Viviane P.
%Y Zhang, Jiajun
%Y Jurgens, David
%S Findings of the Association for Computational Linguistics: ACL 2026
%D 2026
%8 July
%I Association for Computational Linguistics
%C San Diego, California, United States
%@ 979-8-89176-395-1
%F kong-etal-2026-modeling
%X Large language models (LLMs) have recently demonstrated strong capability in understanding and simulating humans’ decisions, suggesting a new way to use LLMs as tools to study social systems. We study two-sided-matching markets, such as dating and job matching. Classical matching models assume deterministic, strict preferences, which violate real-world setting. We focus on stable matching under stochastic decision behavior and use LLMs to simulate human-like preferences and probabilistic choice patterns. Based on this, we introduce Expected Blocking Pairs (EBP), a continuous measure to quantify stability that generalizes the classic blocking pair notion. We further propose a Hybrid GS–LLM matching method that integrates the celebrated Gale–Shapley (GS) algorithm with probabilistic acceptance decisions. Experiments show that the proposed hybrid method outperforms classical baselines in terms of stability, suggesting that LLMs provide a principled tool for modeling human decisions and for improving robustness of matching under uncertainty.
%U https://aclanthology.org/2026.findings-acl.1845/
%P 37021-37033
Markdown (Informal)
[Modeling and Solving Stable Matching under Probabilistic Preferences with Large Language Models](https://aclanthology.org/2026.findings-acl.1845/) (Kong et al., Findings 2026)
ACL