Typed Decision Models on Tabular Data
Organizations: University of Wisconsin–Madison · School of Artificial Intelligence, Jilin University · School of Data Science, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen
Abstract
Typed decision models are language models that answer a question with a fixed set of possible answers by returning a probability for each answer instead of generating text. We study them on tabular data and compare four decision models with three large language models (LLMs) on row classification, fact verification and anomaly detection. Every request is sent in its original form and under 21 types of rewrite that keep its content, such as renaming the options or writing the table in another format. The decision models perform as well as the LLMs at a lower cost. Three of them are also far more robust to how the question is formulated. No model we test is robust to how the table is organized. For every model, at least a third of the row decisions change under some rewrite of the table or the question. The decisions to which a decision model gives low probability are the ones most likely to change. Decision models are a practical choice for tabular decisions, but their robustness remains an open problem.
Figures & tables
| Decision models | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Research question | Jev, Clef, Kev-27B | GPT-6 Luna Decisions | LLMs |
| RQ1 Are decision models practical? (§ 3 ) | ✓ As accurate as LLMs and best on two of three tasks, at far lower cost | ✓ As accurate as GPT-6 Luna and cheaper on rows and samples | ✓ Best on row classification, but a decoding pass per decision |
| RQ2 Are they robust to the formulation of the question? (§ 4 ) | ✓ Option names and order barely matter | ✗ Reversing the options changes up to 23% | ✗ Option names and order change up to 30% |
| RQ3 Are they robust to how the table is organized? (§ 5 ) | ✗ Format and row and column order change many decisions | ✗ Likewise | ✗ Likewise |
| RQ4 Does their confidence indicate which decisions are sensitive to rewrites? (§ 6 ) | ✓ Low confidence marks the decisions a rewrite changes | Partly. As well as an LLM’s best readout | Partly. Only with ten draws or token probabilities |
| Task | Input | Decision | Data |
|---|---|---|---|
| Row classification | One sample and a description of its features | Its class | 10 datasets, 3,481 rows |
| Fact verification | A table and a claim about it | Supported or refuted | TabFact, 2,000 claims |
| Anomaly detection | One sample, a description of the data and statistics of normal samples | Normal or anomalous | ReTabAD, 20 sources, 5,059 samples |
| Question , options with their descriptions | |
|---|---|
| original | {no, yes} with descriptions |
| options reversed | {yes, no} |
| renamed A, B | {A, B}, descriptions kept |
| synonyms | {false, true} |
| yes/no question | "Is the target class yes?" |
| paraphrased | "Determine the class …" |
| performance | generated tokens | |||||
| Model | Cl. | TF | AD | Cl. | TF | AD |
| Jev | 52.1 | 89.7 | 74.6 | none: one pass b | ||
| Clef | 58.4 | 85.0 | 74.7 | none: one pass | ||
| Kev-27B | 55.2 | 88.8 | 81.2 | none: one pass | ||
| GPT-6 Luna Decisions | 61.2 | 78.7 | 80.5 | none c | ||
| GPT-6 Luna | 62.5 | 79.0 | 77.3 | 5.6 | 11.8 | 87.5 |
| seconds | US$ / million | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Model | Cl. | TF | AD | Cl. | TF | AD |
| Jev | 0.08 | 1.33 | 0.09 | 10 | 38 | 16 |
| GPT-6 Luna Decisions | 0.10 | 1.60 | 0.11 | 24 | 61 | 37 |
| GPT-6 Luna | 1.62 | 1.59 | 0.73 | 81 | 62 | 68 |
| Model | Row classif. | TabFact | Anomaly det. |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jev | 33.8 | 19.3 | 21.1 |
| Clef | 31.7 | 23.0 | 25.8 |
| Kev-27B | 32.2 | 18.3 | 17.7 |
| GPT-6 Luna Decisions | 39.6 | 38.3 | 29.9 |
| GPT-6 Luna | 42.8 | 60.8 | 63.4 |
| Qwen3.8-27B | 31.8 | 27.4 | 23.3 |
| Model | Confidence | Cl. | TF | AD |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Trained from the same backbone | ||||
| Clef | probability | 1.4 | 4.1 | 0.7 |
| Kev-27B | probability | 3.1 | 2.5 | 0.1 |
| Qwen3.8-27B | ten draws | 2.6 | 9.7 | 4.8 |
| stated | 23.4 | 29.2 | 9.2 | |
| The same model through two interfaces | ||||
Appendix figures & tables16 assets
Supplementary material from the paper’s appendix.
Appendix
| predicts a flip | predicts an error | |||||
| Model | Row classif. | Anomaly | TabFact | Row classif. | Anomaly | TabFact |
| Jev | 0.87 [0.86, 0.88] | 0.89 [0.89, 0.90] | 0.89 [0.88, 0.91] | 0.59 | 0.65 | 0.82 |
| Clef | 0.85 [0.85, 0.86] | 0.89 [0.88, 0.89] | 0.87 [0.86, 0.89] | 0.67 | 0.61 | 0.84 |
| Kev-27B | 0.85 [0.84, 0.86] | 0.92 [0.92, 0.93] | 0.90 [0.88, 0.91] | 0.70 | 0.70 | 0.84 |
| GPT-6 Luna Decisions | 0.82 [0.81, 0.83] | 0.83 [0.83, 0.84] | 0.81 [0.80, 0.83] | 0.74 | 0.70 | 0.78 |
| GPT-6 Luna | 0.83 [0.82, 0.84] | 0.71 [0.70, 0.72] | 0.73 [0.72, 0.75] | 0.68 | 0.62 | 0.69 |
| Model | Ten draws | Stated | Answer prob. |
|---|---|---|---|
| Row classification | |||
| GPT-6 Luna | 0.83 | 0.72 | 0.71 |
| Qwen3.8-27B | 0.77 | 0.60 | 0.65 |
| Llama-3.3-70B | 0.64 | 0.50 | 0.73 |
| weakest of Jev, Clef and Kev-27B: Kev-27B, 0.85 | |||
| GPT-6 Luna Decisions: 0.82 | |||
| arXiv | Table input (application or setting) |
|---|---|
| 2609.23136 | telemetry tables (6G network intents) |
| 2609.24395 | video feature records (video quality) |
| 2609.27535 | survey micro-data as personas (social science) |
| 2609.33689 | KPM records (5G network control) |
| 2609.36154 | accelerometer features (activity recognition) |
| 2609.37470 | joined tables or nested records (synthetic world) |
| Task | Code | Rewrite | Source |
| Row classification | COLS | Columns shuffled: one fixed permutation per dataset; field descriptions, names and values permuted together | order |
| COLR | Columns in reverse order | order | |
| LIST | One line per field, “- name: value” (TabLLM list) | format | |
| TEXT | One sentence per field, “The name is value.” (TabLLM text) | format | |
| JSONOBJ | JSON object {name: value} | format | |
| MD | One-row Markdown table (header and value row) | format |
| decision models | LLMs | |||||||||||||
| Jev | Clef | Kev-27B | GPT-6 Luna Decisions | GPT-6 Luna | Qwen3.8-27B | Llama-3.3-70B | ||||||||
| Condition | Flip | Score | Flip | Score | Flip | Score | Flip | Score | Flip | Score | Flip | Score | Flip | Score |
| Row classification (Macro-F1) | ||||||||||||||
| original request | – | 52.1 | – | 58.4 | – | 55.2 | – | 61.2 | – | 62.5 | – | 52.2 | – | 44.0 |
| identical re-send | 4.7 | 52.4 | 1.6 | 58.0 | 0.6 | 54.5 | 0.0 | 61.2 | 13.3 | 63.0 | 1.1 | 52.9 | 0.4 | 44.1 |
| options in reverse order | 5.9 | 52.3 | 1.6 | 58.0 | 5.9 | 53.9 | 22.7 | 60.1 | 13.7 | 62.5 | 13.6 | 54.1 | 26.8 | 51.4 |
| decision models | LLMs | |||||||||||||
| Jev | Clef | Kev-27B | GPT-6 Luna Decisions | GPT-6 Luna | Qwen3.8-27B | Llama-3.3-70B | ||||||||
| Condition | Flip | Score | Flip | Score | Flip | Score | Flip | Score | Flip | Score | Flip | Score | Flip | Score |
| Row classification (Macro-F1) | ||||||||||||||
| original request | – | 52.1 | – | 58.4 | – | 55.2 | – | 61.2 | – | 62.5 | – | 52.2 | – | 44.0 |
| identical re-send | 4.7 | 52.4 | 1.6 | 58.0 | 0.6 | 54.5 | 0.0 | 61.2 | 13.3 | 63.0 | 1.1 | 52.9 | 0.4 | 44.1 |
| columns shuffled | 15.9 | 51.6 | 15.0 | 57.8 | 15.6 | 54.8 | 18.5 | 57.0 | 20.1 | 60.3 | 20.4 | 52.5 | 17.2 | 46.3 |
| decision models | LLMs | |||||||||||||
| Jev | Clef | Kev-27B | GPT-6 Luna Decisions | GPT-6 Luna | Qwen3.8-27B | Llama-3.3-70B | ||||||||
| Condition | Flip | Score | Flip | Score | Flip | Score | Flip | Score | Flip | Score | Flip | Score | Flip | Score |
| Row classification (Macro-F1) | ||||||||||||||
| original request | – | 52.1 | – | 58.4 | – | 55.2 | – | 61.2 | – | 62.5 | – | 52.2 | – | 44.0 |
| identical re-send | 4.7 | 52.4 | 1.6 | 58.0 | 0.6 | 54.5 | 0.0 | 61.2 | 13.3 | 63.0 | 1.1 | 52.9 | 0.4 | 44.1 |
| list (“- name: value”) | 15.0 | 56.0 | 14.0 | 60.3 | 16.1 | 54.6 | 17.2 | 64.7 | 17.7 | 66.5 | 17.9 | 58.4 | 21.3 | 47.9 |
| Jev | Clef | Kev-27B | GPT-6 Luna Decisions | trained on the same examples | ||||||||
| Row classification (Macro-F1) | Score | Score | Score | Score | LogReg | LightGBM | Best | TabPFN | ||||
| no examples (zero-shot) | 52.1 | – | 58.4 | – | 55.1 | – | 61.2 | – | – | – | – | – |
| 4 examples | 60.2 | +8.1 | 60.0 | +1.6 | 59.0 | +3.8 | 59.6 | 1.6 | 51.8 | 45.3 | 55.2 | 51.5 |
| 16 examples (the original ones) | 60.0 | +7.9 | 61.7 | +3.2 | 62.7 | +7.6 | 60.4 | 0.8 | 58.6 | 51.8 | 58.7 | 59.5 |
| 64 examples b | 65.3 | +12.2 | 68.2 | +9.0 | 69.3 | +12.2 | 65.4 | +3.3 | 69.2 | 69.1 | 69.4 | 70.8 |
| as many as fit (30–681) | 66.7 | +14.6 | 70.6 | +12.1 | 73.0 | +17.6 | 69.9 | +8.7 | 72.2 | 76.0 | 76.3 | 77.8 |
| GPT-6 Luna | Qwen3.8-27B | Llama-3.3-70B | ||||
| Row classification (Macro-F1) | Score | Score | Score | |||
| no examples (zero-shot) | 62.5 | – | 52.2 | – | 44.0 | – |
| 4 examples | 64.9 | +2.4 | 59.2 | +7.0 | 57.6 | +13.5 |
| 16 examples (the original ones) | 64.5 | +2.0 | 59.5 | +7.3 | 56.7 | +12.6 |
| 64 examples b | 66.2 | +3.0 | 65.4 | +10.4 | 57.4 | +12.5 |
| as many as fit (30–681) | 69.3 | +6.8 | 67.1 | +14.9 | 60.7 | +16.6 |
| confidence band (1: lowest 25%) | noise | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Task | Model | Items | All | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | Re-send | Bound | Question | |
| Row classif. | Jev | 3,481 | 6 | 33.8 [32.2,35.4] | 78.0 [75.3,80.7] | 41.6 | 14.7 | 0.9 [0.3,1.5] | 4.7 | 25.3 | 20.2 [18.9,21.6] |
| Clef | 3,481 | 6 | 31.7 [30.1,33.2] | 77.5 [74.8,79.9] | 37.2 | 10.7 | 1.4 [0.7,2.3] | 1.6 | 9.0 | 17.3 [16.2,18.5] | |
| Kev-27B | 3,481 | 6 | 32.2 [30.6,33.7] | 76.7 [74.2,79.6] | 40.0 | 9.0 | 3.1 [2.0,4.3] | 0.6 | 3.6 | 17.1 [15.8,18.2] | |
| GPT-6 Luna Decisions | 3,481 | 6 | 39.6 [38.2,41.2] | 80.9 [78.3,83.6] | 52.3 | 23.2 | 1.8 [1.0,2.8] | 0.0 | 0.0 | 36.7 [35.1,38.2] | |
| GPT-6 Luna a | 3,481 | 6 | 42.8 [41.2,44.3] | 88.7 [86.6,90.9] | 41.5 | 20.6 | 20.2 [17.6,22.7] | 13.3 | 57.5 | 34.9 [33.3,36.4] | |
| Model | Right (%), top / low 25% | stable, right | stable, wrong | fragile, right | fragile, wrong |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Row classification | |||||
| Jev | 67 / 48 | 44 / 0.79 | 23 / 0.78 | 16 / 0.59 | 18 / 0.56 |
| Clef | 86 / 52 | 52 / 0.84 | 16 / 0.78 | 16 / 0.61 | 16 / 0.59 |
| Kev-27B | 85 / 43 | 48 / 0.76 | 19 / 0.67 | 14 / 0.55 | 19 / 0.54 |
| GPT-6 Luna Decisions | 94 / 49 | 49 / 0.91 | 11 / 0.82 | 21 / 0.68 | 19 / 0.62 |
| GPT-6 Luna | 82 / 46 | 48 / 0.98 | 9 / 0.95 | 23 / 0.77 | 20 / 0.65 |
Tabular Prediction
Tabular prediction uses structured rows and columns to forecast labels, values, risks, and outcomes from data.
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