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Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback (RLHF) allows us to train models, such as language models (LMs), to follow complex human preferences. In RLHF for LMs, we first train an LM using supervised fine-tuning, sample pairs of responses,…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-07-22 Johannes Ackermann , Takashi Ishida , Masashi Sugiyama

Group Relative Policy Optimization (GRPO) has been shown to be an effective algorithm when an accurate reward model is available. However, such a highly reliable reward model is not available in many real-world tasks. In this paper, we…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-01-12 Yuki Ichihara , Yuu Jinnai , Tetsuro Morimura , Mitsuki Sakamoto , Ryota Mitsuhashi , Eiji Uchibe

Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback (RLHF) is the standard method to align Large Language Models (LLMs) with human preferences. In this work, we introduce alignment tampering, a potential vulnerability where the LLM undergoing…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2026-05-27 Dongyoon Hahm , Dylan Hadfield-Menell , Kimin Lee

Despite the efficacy of Direct Preference Optimization (DPO) in aligning Large Language Models (LLMs), reward hacking remains a pivotal challenge. This issue emerges when LLMs excessively reduce the probability of rejected completions to…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2025-08-26 Chenxu Yang , Ruipeng Jia , Mingyu Zheng , Naibin Gu , Zheng Lin , Siyuan Chen , Weichong Yin , Hua Wu , Weiping Wang

Recent advances in aligning Large Language Models with human preferences have benefited from larger reward models and better preference data. However, most of these methodologies rely on the accuracy of the reward model. The reward models…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2024-11-01 Debangshu Banerjee , Aditya Gopalan

Reinforcement learning from human feedback (RLHF) has emerged as an effective approach to aligning large language models (LLMs) to human preferences. RLHF contains three steps, i.e., human preference collecting, reward learning, and policy…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2024-03-29 Hao Lang , Fei Huang , Yongbin Li

Reinforcement learning from human feedback (RLHF) has emerged as a reliable approach to aligning large language models (LLMs) to human preferences. Among the plethora of RLHF techniques, proximal policy optimization (PPO) is of the most…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2023-11-06 Banghua Zhu , Hiteshi Sharma , Felipe Vieira Frujeri , Shi Dong , Chenguang Zhu , Michael I. Jordan , Jiantao Jiao

In reinforcement learning, specifying reward functions that capture the intended task can be very challenging. Reward learning aims to address this issue by learning the reward function. However, a learned reward model may have a low error…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-07-09 Lukas Fluri , Leon Lang , Alessandro Abate , Patrick Forré , David Krueger , Joar Skalse

Training language models via reinforcement learning often relies on imperfect proxy rewards, since ground truth rewards that precisely define the intended behavior are rarely available. Standard metrics for assessing the quality of proxy…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-04-29 Shuning Shang , Hubert Strauss , Stanley Wei , Sanjeev Arora , Noam Razin

Reinforcement learning (RL) commonly relies on scalar rewards with limited ability to express temporal, conditional, or safety-critical goals, and can lead to reward hacking. Temporal logic expressible via the more general class of…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2025-11-26 Dominik Wagner , Leon Witzman , Luke Ong

Language models are capable of iteratively improving their outputs based on natural language feedback, thus enabling in-context optimization of user preference. In place of human users, a second language model can be used as an evaluator,…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2024-07-08 Jane Pan , He He , Samuel R. Bowman , Shi Feng

Reinforcement learning with verifiable rewards (RLVR) typically optimizes for outcome rewards without imposing constraints on intermediate reasoning. This leaves training susceptible to reward hacking, where models exploit loopholes (e.g.,…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-04-20 Songtao Wang , Quang Hieu Pham , Fangcong Yin , Xinpeng Wang , Jocelyn Qiaochu Chen , Greg Durrett , Xi Ye

Human-designed reward functions for reinforcement learning (RL) agents are frequently misaligned with the humans' true, unobservable objectives, and thus act only as proxies. Optimizing for a misspecified proxy reward function often induces…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2026-01-30 Stephane Hatgis-Kessell , Logan Mondal Bhamidipaty , Emma Brunskill

A common paradigm to improve the performance of large language models is optimizing for a reward model. Reward models assign a numerical score to an LLM's output that indicates, for example, how likely it is to align with user preferences…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-11-06 Hadi Khalaf , Claudio Mayrink Verdun , Alex Oesterling , Himabindu Lakkaraju , Flavio du Pin Calmon

While large language models demonstrate remarkable capabilities, they often present challenges in terms of safety, alignment with human values, and stability during training. Here, we focus on two prevalent methods used to align these…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2023-10-26 Gabriel Mukobi , Peter Chatain , Su Fong , Robert Windesheim , Gitta Kutyniok , Kush Bhatia , Silas Alberti

Reinforcement learning from human feedback (RLHF) has become a core post-training step for aligning large language models, yet the reward signal used in RLHF is only a learned proxy for true human utility. From an operations research…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-05-19 Yikai Wang , Shang Liu , Jose Blanchet

The key to building trustworthy large language models (LLMs) lies in endowing them with inherent uncertainty expression capabilities, thereby mitigating overconfident errors in high-stakes applications. However, existing RL paradigms such…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2026-05-27 Xianzhou Zeng , Jing Huang , Chunmei Xie , Gongrui Nan , Siye Chen , Mengyu Lu , Weiqi Xiong , Qixuan Zhou , Junhao Zhang , Qiang Zhu , Yadong Li , Xingzhong Xu

We study Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback (RLHF) in settings where multiple labelers may strategically misreport feedback to steer the learned policy toward their own preferences. We show that existing RLHF algorithms, including…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-10-17 Thomas Kleine Buening , Jiarui Gan , Debmalya Mandal , Marta Kwiatkowska

Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback relies on reward models to align large language models with human preferences. However, RLHF often suffers from reward hacking, wherein policy learning exploits flaws in the trained reward model to…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-05-20 Kangwen Zhao , Jianfeng Cai , Jinhua Zhu , Ruopei Sun , Dongyun Xue , Wengang Zhou , Li Li , Houqiang Li

In reinforcement learning from human feedback, preference-based reward models play a central role in aligning large language models to human-aligned behavior. However, recent studies show that these models are prone to reward hacking and…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2025-10-23 Wenqian Ye , Guangtao Zheng , Aidong Zhang