English
Related papers

Related papers: Towards Bridging the Reward-Generation Gap in Dire…

200 papers

The class of direct preference optimization (DPO) algorithms has emerged as a promising approach for solving the alignment problem in foundation models. These algorithms work with very limited feedback in the form of pairwise preferences…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-02-03 Luca Viano , Ruida Zhou , Yifan Sun , Mahdi Namazifar , Volkan Cevher , Shoham Sabach , Mohammad Ghavamzadeh

Direct Alignment Algorithms (DAAs), such as Direct Preference Optimisation (DPO) and Identity Preference Optimisation (IPO), have emerged as alternatives to online Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback (RLHF) algorithms such as…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2024-10-21 Zhengyan Shi , Sander Land , Acyr Locatelli , Matthieu Geist , Max Bartolo

In this paper, we take a step towards a deeper understanding of learning from human preferences by systematically comparing the paradigm of reinforcement learning from human feedback (RLHF) with the recently proposed paradigm of direct…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-06-06 Andi Nika , Debmalya Mandal , Parameswaran Kamalaruban , Georgios Tzannetos , Goran Radanović , Adish Singla

While large-scale unsupervised language models (LMs) learn broad world knowledge and some reasoning skills, achieving precise control of their behavior is difficult due to the completely unsupervised nature of their training. Existing…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-07-31 Rafael Rafailov , Archit Sharma , Eric Mitchell , Stefano Ermon , Christopher D. Manning , Chelsea Finn

Direct Preference Optimization (DPO) has emerged as a prominent algorithm for the direct and robust alignment of Large Language Models (LLMs) with human preferences, offering a more straightforward alternative to the complex Reinforcement…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2024-12-10 Junru Lu , Jiazheng Li , Siyu An , Meng Zhao , Yulan He , Di Yin , Xing Sun

In the field of large language models (LLMs), aligning models with the diverse preferences of users is a critical challenge. Direct Preference Optimization (DPO) has played a key role in this area. It works by using pairs of preferences…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2024-05-29 Yueqin Yin , Zhendong Wang , Yi Gu , Hai Huang , Weizhu Chen , Mingyuan Zhou

Direct alignment from preferences (DAP) methods, such as DPO, have recently emerged as efficient alternatives to reinforcement learning from human feedback (RLHF), that do not require a separate reward model. However, the preference…

Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback (RLHF) has become central to aligning large language models with human values, typically by first learning a reward model from preference data which is then used to update the model with…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-10-21 Keertana Chidambaram , Karthik Vinay Seetharaman , Vasilis Syrgkanis

Direct Preference Optimization (DPO) aligns Large Language Models with human preferences without the need for a separate reward model. However, DPO treats all tokens in responses equally, neglecting the differing importance of individual…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2026-05-27 Chengyu Huang , Zhuohang Li , Sheng-Yen Chou , Claire Cardie

We present a fine-grained theoretical analysis of the performance gap between two-stage reinforcement learning from human feedback~(RLHF) and direct preference optimization~(DPO). Our study decomposes this gap into two sources: the explicit…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-05-13 Ruizhe Shi , Minhak Song , Runlong Zhou , Zihan Zhang , Maryam Fazel , Simon S. Du

Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback (RLHF) has become central to aligning large language models with human values, typically by first learning a reward model from preference data which is then used to update the model with…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2025-10-20 Keertana Chidambaram , Karthik Vinary Seetharaman , Vasilis Syrgkanis

Traditional RLHF-based LLM alignment methods explicitly maximize the expected rewards from a separate reward model. More recent supervised alignment methods like Direct Preference Optimization (DPO) circumvent this phase to avoid problems…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-02-03 Abhijnan Nath , Changsoo Jung , Ethan Seefried , Nikhil Krishnaswamy

Direct Preference Optimization (DPO) has become a prominent method for aligning Large Language Models (LLMs) with human preferences. While DPO has enabled significant progress in aligning English LLMs, multilingual preference alignment is…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2025-06-06 Wen Yang , Junhong Wu , Chen Wang , Chengqing Zong , Jiajun Zhang

Direct Preference Optimization (DPO) is a widely used reinforcement learning from human feedback (RLHF) method across various domains. Recent research has increasingly focused on the role of token importance in improving DPO effectiveness.…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2025-12-01 Jian Li , Shenglin Yin , Yujia Zhang , Alan Zhao , Xi Chen , Xiaohui Zhou , Pengfei Xu

The widespread application of large language models (LLMs) raises increasing demands on ensuring safety or imposing constraints, such as reducing harmful content and adhering to predefined rules. While there have been several works studying…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-02-13 Yihan Du , Seo Taek Kong , R. Srikant

The alignment of Large Language Models (LLMs) is crucial for ensuring their safety and reliability in practical applications. Direct Preference Optimization (DPO) has emerged as an efficient method that directly optimizes models using…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2025-10-30 Jie Sun , Junkang Wu , Jiancan Wu , Zhibo Zhu , Xingyu Lu , Jun Zhou , Lintao Ma , Xiang Wang

Generative AI can now synthesize strikingly realistic images from text, yet output quality remains highly sensitive to how prompts are phrased. Direct Preference Optimization (DPO) offers a lightweight, off-policy alternative to RL for…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2025-07-30 Anas Mohamed , Azal Ahmad Khan , Xinran Wang , Ahmad Faraz Khan , Shuwen Ge , Saman Bahzad Khan , Ayaan Ahmad , Ali Anwar

Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback (RLHF) has emerged as a pivotal tool for aligning large language models (LLMs) with human preferences. Direct Preference Optimization (DPO), one of the most popular approaches, formulates RLHF as a…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-10-10 Jiafan He , Huizhuo Yuan , Quanquan Gu

Large language models in the past have typically relied on some form of reinforcement learning with human feedback (RLHF) to better align model responses with human preferences. However, because of oft-observed instabilities when…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2024-07-15 Xiangkun Hu , Tong He , David Wipf

Large Vision-Language Models (LVLMs) or multimodal large language models represent a significant advancement in artificial intelligence, enabling systems to understand and generate content across both visual and textual modalities. While…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-09-09 Thanh Thi Nguyen , Campbell Wilson , Janis Dalins