arXiv:2505.23564cs.LGcs.AI2025-05NeurIPS被引 60

提出分段策略优化,提升大模型强化学习推理能力。

Segment Policy Optimization: Effective Segment-Level Credit Assignment in RL for Large Language Models

  • 采用中间粒度的分段优势估计,平衡精度与计算量。
  • 在GSM8K上比PPO/GRPO高6-12个百分点,在MATH500上高7-11个百分点。
  • 无需价值函数网络,适合长/短思维链场景,代码开源。

利用强化学习有效提升大语言模型的推理能力仍是关键挑战。现有方法分属两个极端:词元级(如PPO)虽精细但估值不准,轨迹级(如GRPO)仅依赖最终奖励,信用分配粗糙。为此,我们提出分段策略优化(SPO),在中间粒度上实现分段优势估计,兼具更精确的信用分配与更低的估计点需求,支持基于蒙特卡洛的无价值函数准确估值。SPO包含三个创新组件:灵活分段、精准分段优势估计、基于分段优势的策略优化(含新型概率掩码)。我们进一步构建两种实例:针对短思维链的SPO-chain,采用基于切点的分段与链式优势估计,在GSM8K上相较PPO和GRPO提升6-12个百分点;针对长思维链的SPO-tree,采用树状优势估计,显著降低蒙特卡洛成本,在2K/4K上下文下于MATH500上较GRPO提升7-11个百分点。代码已公开于https://github.com/AIFrameResearch/SPO。

原文摘要 · Abstract (English)

Enhancing the reasoning capabilities of large language models effectively using reinforcement learning (RL) remains a crucial challenge. Existing approaches primarily adopt two contrasting advantage estimation granularities: token-level methods (e.g., PPO) aim to provide fine-grained advantage signals but suffer from inaccurate estimation due to difficulties in training an accurate critic model. On the other extreme, trajectory-level methods (e.g., GRPO) solely rely on a coarse-grained advantage signal from the final reward, leading to imprecise credit assignment. To address these limitations, we propose Segment Policy Optimization (SPO), a novel RL framework that leverages segment-level advantage estimation at an intermediate granularity, achieving a better balance by offering more precise credit assignment than trajectory-level methods and requiring fewer estimation points than token-level methods, enabling accurate advantage estimation based on Monte Carlo (MC) without a critic model. SPO features three components with novel strategies: (1) flexible segment partition; (2) accurate segment advantage estimation; and (3) policy optimization using segment advantages, including a novel probability-mask strategy. We further instantiate SPO for two specific scenarios: (1) SPO-chain for short chain-of-thought (CoT), featuring novel cutpoint-based partition and chain-based advantage estimation, achieving $6$-$12$ percentage point improvements in accuracy over PPO and GRPO on GSM8K. (2) SPO-tree for long CoT, featuring novel tree-based advantage estimation, which significantly reduces the cost of MC estimation, achieving $7$-$11$ percentage point improvements over GRPO on MATH500 under 2K and 4K context evaluation. We make our code publicly available at https://github.com/AIFrameResearch/SPO.

强化学习大模型推理信用分配思维链

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