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\emph{Kullback-Leibler} (KL) regularization is ubiquitous in reinforcement learning algorithms in the form of \emph{reverse} or \emph{forward} KL. Recent studies have demonstrated $\epsilon^{-1}$-type fast rates for decision making under…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-05-12 Qingyue Zhao , Kaixuan Ji , Heyang Zhao , Quanquan Gu

Kullback-Leibler (KL) regularization is widely used in offline decision-making and offers several benefits, motivating recent work on the sample complexity of offline learning with respect to KL-regularized performance metrics.…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-05-05 Kaixuan Ji , Qiwei Di , Heyang Zhao , Qingyue Zhao , Quanquan Gu

Many offline reinforcement learning algorithms are underpinned by $f$-divergence regularization, but their sample complexity *defined with respect to regularized objectives* still lacks tight analyses, especially in terms of concrete data…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-02-27 Qingyue Zhao , Kaixuan Ji , Heyang Zhao , Tong Zhang , Quanquan Gu

Recent advances in Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback (RLHF) have shown that KL-regularization plays a pivotal role in improving the efficiency of RL fine-tuning for large language models (LLMs). Despite its empirical advantage, the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-03-12 Heyang Zhao , Chenlu Ye , Wei Xiong , Quanquan Gu , Tong Zhang

Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback (RLHF) has become a cornerstone technique for post-training large language models. While most existing approaches rely on the reverse KL-regularization, recent empirical studies have begun…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-05-11 Di Wu , Chengshuai Shi , Jing Yang , Cong Shen

It is commonly believed that optimizing the reverse KL divergence results in "mode seeking", while optimizing forward KL results in "mass covering", with the latter being preferred if the goal is to sample from multiple diverse modes. We…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-10-24 Anthony GX-Chen , Jatin Prakash , Jeff Guo , Rob Fergus , Rajesh Ranganath

In this paper, we study the offline and online settings of reinforcement learning from human feedback (RLHF) with KL-regularization -- a widely used objective function in large language model alignment -- under the $\epsilon$ local…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-10-16 Yulian Wu , Rushil Thareja , Praneeth Vepakomma , Francesco Orabona

Reverse Kullback-Leibler (KL) divergence-based regularization with respect to a fixed reference policy is widely used in modern reinforcement learning to preserve the desired traits of the reference policy and sometimes to promote…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-02-05 Anupam Nayak , Tong Yang , Osman Yagan , Gauri Joshi , Yuejie Chi

Alignment and adaptation in large language models heavily rely on reinforcement learning from human feedback (RLHF); yet, theoretical understanding of its generalisability remains premature, especially when the learned reward could shift,…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-02-26 Kenton Tang , Yuzhu Chen , Fengxiang He

Recent methods for aligning large language models (LLMs) with human feedback predominantly rely on a single reference model, which limits diversity, model overfitting, and underutilizes the wide range of available pre-trained models.…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-10-21 Gholamali Aminian , Amir R. Asadi , Idan Shenfeld , Youssef Mroueh

Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback (RLHF) leverages a Kullback-Leibler (KL) divergence loss to stabilize training and prevent overfitting. However, in methods such as GRPO, its implementation may be guided by principles from…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-10-07 Kezhao Liu , Jason Klein Liu , Mingtao Chen , Yiming Liu

Recent studies have shown that reinforcement learning with KL-regularized objectives can enjoy faster rates of convergence or logarithmic regret, in contrast to the classical $\sqrt{T}$-type regret in the unregularized setting. However, the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-03-03 Kaixuan Ji , Qingyue Zhao , Heyang Zhao , Qiwei Di , Quanquan Gu

Recent Reinforcement Learning (RL) algorithms making use of Kullback-Leibler (KL) regularization as a core component have shown outstanding performance. Yet, only little is understood theoretically about why KL regularization helps, so far.…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-01-07 Nino Vieillard , Tadashi Kozuno , Bruno Scherrer , Olivier Pietquin , Rémi Munos , Matthieu Geist

This paper studies the alignment process of generative models with Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback (RLHF). We first identify the primary challenges of existing popular methods like offline PPO and offline DPO as lacking in…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-05-02 Wei Xiong , Hanze Dong , Chenlu Ye , Ziqi Wang , Han Zhong , Heng Ji , Nan Jiang , Tong Zhang

Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback (RLHF) or Verifiable Rewards (RLVR) are two key steps in the post-training of modern Language Models (LMs). A common problem is reward hacking, where the policy may exploit inaccuracies of the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-02-23 Johannes Ackermann , Michael Noukhovitch , Takashi Ishida , Masashi Sugiyama

The reasoning performance of large language models (LLMs) can be substantially improved by training them with reinforcement learning (RL). The RL objective for LLM training involves a regularization term, which is the reverse…

Incorporating expert demonstrations has empirically helped to improve the sample efficiency of reinforcement learning (RL). This paper quantifies theoretically to what extent this extra information reduces RL's sample complexity. In…

Differential Privacy (DP) provides a rigorous framework for privacy, ensuring the outputs of data-driven algorithms remain statistically indistinguishable across datasets that differ in a single entry. While guaranteeing DP generally…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-10-17 Yizhou Zhang , Kishan Panaganti , Laixi Shi , Juba Ziani , Adam Wierman

Sample efficiency is critical for online Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback (RLHF). While existing works investigate sample-efficient online exploration strategies, the potential of utilizing misspecified yet relevant reward models…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-05-20 Jiawei Huang , Bingcong Li , Christoph Dann , Niao He

Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback (RLHF) has advanced alignment capabilities significantly but remains hindered by two core challenges: \textbf{reward hacking} and \textbf{stable optimization}. Current solutions independently…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-02-13 Li He , Qiang Qu , He Zhao , Stephen Wan , Dadong Wang , Lina Yao , Tongliang Liu
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