提出新方法稳定长对话大模型强化学习训练,避免性能崩溃。
Stabilizing Off-Policy Training for Long-Horizon LLM Agent via Turn-Level Importance Sampling and Clipping-Triggered Normalization
- 按对话轮次统一优化粒度,减少梯度噪声
- 动态抑制不可靠更新,保持训练稳定不崩溃
- 无需调参或早停,适合真实多轮任务场景
PPO和GRPO等强化学习算法广泛用于训练大语言模型完成多轮交互任务。然而,在离策略训练中,这些方法常出现优化不稳定甚至性能崩溃。通过实证分析,我们发现两个根本原因:(1) 令牌级策略优化与轮次结构的粒度不匹配;(2) 离策略重要性采样和优势估计不准导致高方差梯度更新。为此,我们提出SORL框架,通过与多轮交互结构对齐的优化机制和自适应抑制不可靠更新,实现更保守稳健的学习动态。在此框架下,我们构建了SO-PPO和SO-GRPO两个稳定算法,均能有效降低梯度方差、防止优化崩溃,且无需精细早停或启发式调参。在通用问答、多跳问答和医学多选题等多轮搜索基准上测试显示,两种方法均能持续避免标准PPO/GRPO中的训练不稳定和性能下降,保持更低的裁剪比例和更稳定的优化轨迹,并取得更优或相当的任务表现。结果表明,该方法为长时序大模型智能体训练提供了一种实用、可扩展且通用的稳定强化学习方案。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
Reinforcement learning (RL) algorithms such as PPO and GRPO are widely used to train large language models (LLMs) for multi-turn agentic tasks. However, in off-policy training pipelines, these methods often exhibit unstable optimization dynamics and are prone to performance collapse. Through empirical analysis, we identify two fundamental sources of instability in this setting: (1)~a granularity mismatch between token-level policy optimization and turn-structured interactions, and (2) high-variance and unreliable gradient updates induced by off-policy importance sampling and inaccurate advantage estimation. To address these challenges, we propose SORL, \underline{S}tabilizing \underline{O}ff-Policy \underline{R}einforcement \underline{L}earning for Long-Horizon Agent Training. SORL introduces principled mechanisms that align policy optimization with the structure of multi-turn interactions and adaptively suppress unreliable off-policy updates, yielding more conservative and robust learning dynamics. Within this framework, we instantiate two stabilized algorithms: SO-PPO and SO-GRPO. Both algorithms are designed to mitigate gradient variance and prevent optimization collapse without requiring careful early stopping or heuristic tuning. We evaluate SO-PPO and SO-GRPO on a range of multi-turn search benchmarks, including general question answering, multi-hop question answering, and medical multiple-choice QA tasks. Experimental results show that both methods consistently prevent training instabilities and performance collapses observed in standard PPO and GRPO, maintain lower clipping ratios and more stable optimization trajectories, and achieve superior or comparable task performance. These results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm provides a practical, scalable, and general framework for stabilizing reinforcement learning in multi-turn LLM agent training.
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