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Reward models (RMs) play a central role in aligning large language models (LLMs) with human preferences. However, RMs are often sensitive to spurious features such as response length. Existing inference-time approaches for mitigating these…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2026-05-01 Kazutoshi Shinoda , Kosuke Nishida , Kyosuke Nishida

Large Language Models (LLMs) behave non-deterministically, and prompting has become a common method for steering their outputs. A popular strategy is to assign a persona to the model to produce more varied, context-sensitive responses,…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2026-04-21 Bruce W. Lee , Yeongheon Lee , Hyunsoo Cho

Large language models~(LLMs) are expected to be helpful, harmless, and honest. In different alignment scenarios, such as safety, confidence, and general preference alignment, binary preference data collection and reward modeling are…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2025-10-14 Shuai Zhao , Yunqiu Xu , Linchao Zhu , Yi Yang

Reward models play a critical role in guiding large language models toward outputs that align with human expectations. However, an open challenge remains in effectively utilizing test-time compute to enhance reward model performance. In…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2025-05-21 Jiaxin Guo , Zewen Chi , Li Dong , Qingxiu Dong , Xun Wu , Shaohan Huang , Furu Wei

Large language models (LLMs) can be said to have preferences: they reliably pick certain tasks and outputs over others, and preferences shaped by post-training and system prompts appear to shape much of their behaviour. But models can also…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2026-05-19 Oscar Gilg , Pierre Beckmann , Daniel Paleka , Patrick Butlin

Reinforcement learning from human feedback (RLHF) and, at its core, reward modeling have become a crucial part of training powerful large language models (LLMs). One commonly overlooked factor in training high-quality reward models (RMs) is…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2025-05-19 Kian Ahrabian , Pegah Jandaghi , Negar Mokhberian , Sai Praneeth Karimireddy , Jay Pujara

Latent learning, classically theorized by Tolman, shows that biological agents (e.g., rats) can acquire internal representations of their environment without rewards, enabling rapid adaptation once rewards are introduced. In contrast, from…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-02-02 Jian Xiong , Jingbo Zhou , Zihan Zhou , Yixiong Xiao , Le Zhang , Jingyong Ye , Rui Qian , Yang Zhou , Dejing Dou

Preference learning is critical for aligning large language models (LLMs) with human values, with the quality of preference datasets playing a crucial role in this process. While existing metrics primarily assess data quality based on…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-03-05 Kexin Huang , Junkang Wu , Ziqian Chen , Xue Wang , Jinyang Gao , Bolin Ding , Jiancan Wu , Xiangnan He , Xiang Wang

Reward models (RMs) are crucial for the training of large language models (LLMs), yet they typically rely on large-scale human-annotated preference pairs. With the widespread deployment of LLMs, in-the-wild interactions have emerged as a…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2026-02-10 Hao Peng , Yunjia Qi , Xiaozhi Wang , Zijun Yao , Lei Hou , Juanzi Li

Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback (RLHF) has become a crucial technology for aligning language models with human values and intentions, enabling models to produce more helpful and harmless responses. Reward models are trained as…

Reward models are key to language model post-training and inference pipelines. Conveniently, recent work showed that every language model defines an implicit reward model (IM-RM), without requiring any architectural changes. However, such…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2026-01-28 Noam Razin , Yong Lin , Jiarui Yao , Sanjeev Arora

Reward models (RMs) are crucial for the training and inference-time scaling up of large language models (LLMs). However, existing reward models primarily focus on human preferences, neglecting verifiable correctness signals which have shown…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2025-02-27 Hao Peng , Yunjia Qi , Xiaozhi Wang , Zijun Yao , Bin Xu , Lei Hou , Juanzi Li

Reward models are central to large language model (LLM) post-training. However, past work has shown that they can reward spurious or undesirable attributes such as length, format, hallucinations, and sycophancy. In this work, we introduce…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-02-18 Atticus Wang , Iván Arcuschin , Arthur Conmy

Decision-making agents based on pre-trained Large Language Models (LLMs) are increasingly being deployed across various domains of human activity. While their applications are currently rather specialized, several research efforts are…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-05-13 Elizaveta Tennant , Stephen Hailes , Mirco Musolesi

Modern language models are trained on large amounts of data. These data inevitably include controversial and stereotypical content, which contains all sorts of biases related to gender, origin, age, etc. As a result, the models express…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2025-09-03 Aleksandra Sorokovikova , Pavel Chizhov , Iuliia Eremenko , Ivan P. Yamshchikov

Large Language Models (LLMs) are increasingly employed in software engineering tasks such as requirements elicitation, design, and evaluation, raising critical questions regarding their alignment with human judgments on responsible AI…

Software Engineering · Computer Science 2025-11-07 Asma Yamani , Malak Baslyman , Moataz Ahmed

Reward model (RM) plays a pivotal role in aligning large language model (LLM) with human preferences. As real-world applications increasingly involve long history trajectories, e.g., LLM agent, it becomes indispensable to evaluate whether a…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2025-11-05 Zecheng Tang , Baibei Ji , Quantong Qiu , Haitian Wang , Xiaobo Liang , Juntao Li , Min Zhang

Reward modeling has emerged as a crucial component in aligning large language models with human values. Significant attention has focused on using reward models as a means for fine-tuning generative models. However, the reward models…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2026-02-04 Brian Christian , Hannah Rose Kirk , Jessica A. F. Thompson , Christopher Summerfield , Tsvetomira Dumbalska

The capabilities of Large Language Models (LLMs) are routinely evaluated by other LLMs trained to predict human preferences. This framework--known as LLM-as-a-judge--is highly scalable and relatively low cost. However, it is also vulnerable…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2026-02-03 Lisa Alazraki , Tan Yi-Chern , Jon Ander Campos , Maximilian Mozes , Marek Rei , Max Bartolo

Preference alignment in Large Language Models (LLMs) has significantly improved their ability to adhere to human instructions and intentions. However, existing direct alignment algorithms primarily focus on relative preferences and often…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-05-13 Shenao Zhang , Zhihan Liu , Boyi Liu , Yufeng Zhang , Yingxiang Yang , Yongfei Liu , Liyu Chen , Tao Sun , Zhaoran Wang