提出证据溯源机制,防止大模型研究代理滥用工具却无真实依据。
Proof-of-Use: Mitigating Tool-Call Hacking in Deep Research Agents
- 通过可审计的证据引用协议,强制模型在推理中真实使用检索结果。
- 在多个数据集上显著降低虚假调用工具问题,答案与证据对齐率提升37%。
- 无需显式优化,模型自动适应新领域和新工具,具备强泛化能力。
尽管强化学习提升了模型在检索步骤间的规划与推理能力,我们发现其中存在一个关键缺陷:工具调用欺骗(Tool-Call Hacking)。与代码或数学等执行类工具不同,由于在格式和结果层面监督下,检索证据与推理之间的因果关系难以观测,导致模型可通过最大化表面奖励信号而无需真正基于返回证据进行推理。这引发模式崩溃(工具过度使用)和幻觉式工具调用等问题。为此,我们提出证据溯源(Proof-of-Use, PoU),一种以证据为基础的强化学习框架,明确优化从检索到推理的因果依赖关系。PoU重新设计细粒度的分步交互协议,要求模型可审计地引用归一化的证据标识符。通过多目标奖励设计实现:(1)两个渐进式过程奖励,约束中间步骤的引用有效性;(2)全局答案-支持一致性奖励,确保最终答案与检索证据一致;(3)课程式自适应奖励混合机制,平滑过渡从密集过程监督到稀疏结果目标。大量实验表明,PoU在缓解工具调用欺骗方面表现优异,并展现出显著的涌现特性:在领域与工具变化下,模型自然形成适应性强、鲁棒的工具使用模式,即使未显式优化此能力。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
While reinforcement learning (RL) enhances their ability to plan and reason across retrieval steps, we identify a critical failure mode in this setting: Tool-Call Hacking. Unlike execution-based tools (e.g., code or math), whose effects are directly observable, the weak observability of causal dependencies between retrieved evidence and reasoning under format- and outcome-level supervision enables agents to maximize surface-level reward signals without genuinely grounding their reasoning in the returned evidence. This leads to distinctive pathologies, including mode collapse via tool overuse and hallucinated tool usage where tool calls are largely decorative. To address this issue, we propose Proof-of-Use (PoU), an evidence grounded RL framework that explicitly optimizes the causal dependency from retrieval to reasoning and final answers. PoU re-fomulate a fine-grained stepwise interaction protocol in which agents must auditably cite normalized evidence identifiers. We operationalize this via a multi-objective reward design consisting of: (1) two progressive process rewards that constrain citation validity at intermediate steps; (2) a global Answer--Support Alignment reward that enforces consistency between final answers and retrieved evidence; and (3) a curriculum-style adaptive reward mixing mechanism that smoothly transitions agents from dense process supervision to sparse outcome-based objectives. Extensive experiments show the strong performance of PoU and demonstrate the effectiveness in mitigating tool-call hacking. Beyond this, PoU exhibits a notable emergent property: adaptive and robust tool-usage patterns naturally arise under domain and tool shifts, even though PoU does not explicitly optimize for tool adaptation.
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