提出考虑奖励模型不确定性的对齐方法,提升大模型对齐的稳定性。
Towards Reliable, Uncertainty-Aware Alignment
- 引入奖励模型方差估计作为正则项,指导策略优化。
- 实验证明该方法显著降低劣化策略风险,提升对齐稳定性。
- 适合追求鲁棒对齐的开发者与研究者使用。
大型语言模型的对齐通常依赖于在偏好数据上训练奖励模型,再基于该模型进行策略优化。然而,仅依据单一奖励模型估计进行策略优化可能因模型误差而失效。我们通过实证研究发现,在相同偏好数据集上独立训练的多个奖励模型存在显著分歧,表明现有对齐策略存在不稳定性。理论分析显示,奖励模型估计的变异性会导致过拟合,进而引发性能退化。为此,我们提出一种方差感知的策略优化框架,核心是引入包含奖励模型方差估计的新正则项。证明表明,该方法可有效降低输出劣化策略的风险。在多种大模型与奖励模型配置下的实验均证实,该方法相比标准(无方差感知)流程具有更稳定、更鲁棒的对齐表现。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
Alignment of large language models (LLMs) typically involves training a reward model on preference data, followed by policy optimization with respect to the reward model. However, optimizing policies with respect to a single reward model estimate can render it vulnerable to inaccuracies in the reward model. We empirically study the variability of reward model training on open-source benchmarks. We observe that independently trained reward models on the same preference dataset can exhibit substantial disagreement, highlighting the instability of current alignment strategies. Employing a theoretical model, we demonstrate that variability in reward model estimation can cause overfitting, leading to the risk of performance degradation. To mitigate this risk, we propose a variance-aware policy optimization framework for preference-based alignment. The key ingredient of the framework is a new policy regularizer that incorporates reward model variance estimates. We show that variance-aware policy optimization provably reduces the risk of outputting a worse policy than the default. Experiments across diverse LLM and reward model configurations confirm that our approach yields more stable and robust alignment than the standard (variance-unaware) pipeline.
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