统一了大模型后训练的两种数据源,揭示其本质同属一个优化过程。
Towards a Unified View of Large Language Model Post-Training
- 提出统一策略梯度估计器,用四部分组件构建通用框架。
- 在六项数学推理任务中超越主流基线,跨模型规模表现稳定。
- 适合研究后训练机制或需平衡探索与利用的开发者使用。
现代大语言模型后训练主要依赖两类数据:在线生成的数据(模型自产生的推演)和离线数据(人类或其他模型示范)。现有方法如强化学习(RL)和监督微调(SFT)分别对应这两类数据。本文证明二者并非对立,而是同一优化过程的不同实例。我们推导出统一策略梯度估计器,并将多种后训练方法视为在不同数据分布假设和偏差-方差权衡下对共同目标的梯度计算。该估计器由四个可替换组件构成:稳定掩码、参考策略分母、优势估计和似然梯度。基于理论发现,我们提出混合后训练(HPT),动态选择训练信号。HPT旨在有效利用示范数据的同时保持稳定探索,且不破坏已学推理模式。通过大量实验与消融研究验证了统一框架的有效性。在六个数学推理基准和两个分布外测试套件中,HPT持续优于强基线,适用于不同规模和架构的模型。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
Two major sources of training data exist for post-training modern language models: online (model-generated rollouts) data, and offline (human or other-model demonstrations) data. These two types of data are typically used by approaches like Reinforcement Learning (RL) and Supervised Fine-Tuning (SFT), respectively. In this paper, we show that these approaches are not in contradiction, but are instances of a single optimization process. We derive a Unified Policy Gradient Estimator, and present the calculations of a wide spectrum of post-training approaches as the gradient of a common objective under different data distribution assumptions and various bias-variance tradeoffs. The gradient estimator is constructed with four interchangeable parts: stabilization mask, reference policy denominator, advantage estimate, and likelihood gradient. Motivated by our theoretical findings, we propose Hybrid Post-Training (HPT), an algorithm that dynamically selects different training signals. HPT is designed to yield both effective exploitation of demonstration and stable exploration without sacrificing learned reasoning patterns. We provide extensive experiments and ablation studies to verify the effectiveness of our unified theoretical framework and HPT. Across six mathematical reasoning benchmarks and two out-of-distribution suites, HPT consistently surpasses strong baselines across models of varying scales and families.
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