Abstract
The capabilities of Large Language Models (LLMs) are limited to some extent by pre-training, so some researchers optimize LLMs through post-training. Existing post-training strategies, such as memory-based retrieval or preference optimization, improve user alignment yet fail to enhance the model’s domain cognition. To bridge this gap, we propose a novel Dual-Phase Self-Evolution (DPSE) framework that jointly optimizes user preference adaptation and domain-specific competence. DPSE introduces a Censor module to extract multi-dimensional interaction signals and estimate satisfaction scores, which guide structured data expansion via topic-aware and preference-driven strategies. These expanded datasets support a two-stage fine-tuning pipeline: supervised domain grounding followed by frequency-aware preference optimization. Experiments across general NLP benchmarks and long-term dialogue tasks demonstrate that DPSE consistently outperforms Supervised Fine-Tuning, Preference Optimization, and Memory-Augmented baselines. Ablation studies validate the contribution of each module. In this way, our framework provides an autonomous path toward continual self-evolution of LLMs.
- Anthology ID:
- 2026.findings-acl.37
- Volume:
- Findings of the Association for Computational Linguistics: ACL 2026
- Month:
- July
- Year:
- 2026
- Address:
- San Diego, California, United States
- Editors:
- Maria Liakata, Viviane P. Moreira, Jiajun Zhang, David Jurgens
- Venue:
- Findings
- SIG:
- Publisher:
- Association for Computational Linguistics
- Note:
- Pages:
- 772–782
- Language:
- URL:
- https://aclanthology.org/2026.findings-acl.37/
- DOI:
- Bibkey:
- Cite (ACL):
- Haoran Sun, Zekun Zhang, and Shaoning Zeng. 2026. A Dual-Phase Self-Evolution Framework for Large Language Models. In Findings of the Association for Computational Linguistics: ACL 2026, pages 772–782, San Diego, California, United States. Association for Computational Linguistics.
- Cite (Informal):
- A Dual-Phase Self-Evolution Framework for Large Language Models (Sun et al., Findings 2026)
- Copy Citation:
- PDF:
- https://aclanthology.org/2026.findings-acl.37.pdf
- Checklist:
- 2026.findings-acl.37.checklist.pdf























