arXiv:2601.06487cs.LGcs.AI2026-01被引 11

用比赛排名取代打分,让大模型在复杂任务中更好进化

ArenaRL: Scaling RL for Open-Ended Agents via Tournament-based Relative Ranking

  • 用组内相对排序替代单个回复打分,避免奖励模型失效
  • 比赛机制仅需O(N)计算量,精度接近O(N²)全比较
  • 专为开放性任务设计新基准,适合复杂决策场景研究

强化学习在可验证结果的任务上显著提升了大模型代理的表现,但在解空间巨大的开放性任务(如复杂旅行规划)上仍面临挑战。由于缺乏客观标准,现有RL算法依赖奖励模型对单个响应赋予权重分数。我们指出,这种逐点评分存在固有的区分崩溃问题:奖励模型难以区分不同轨迹间的细微优势,导致同组得分高度集中,有效奖励信号被模型噪声主导,引发优化停滞。为此,我们提出ArenaRL,将强化学习范式从逐点评分转向组内相对排名。ArenaRL引入过程感知的成对评估机制,使用多层级评分标准为轨迹分配细粒度相对分数;同时构建组内对抗竞技场并设计基于锦标赛的排名方案,获得稳定的优势信号。实验表明,所构建的种子单淘汰赛制在仅需O(N)复杂度的情况下,达到接近全两两比较O(N²)精度的优劣估计效果,实现效率与精度的最佳平衡。此外,为解决开放性代理缺乏完整周期评测基准的问题,我们构建了Open-Travel和Open-DeepResearch两个高质量基准,覆盖SFT、RL训练及多维评估全流程。大量实验显示,ArenaRL显著优于标准RL基线,使大模型代理在复杂现实任务中生成更鲁棒的解决方案。

原文摘要 · Abstract (English)

Reinforcement learning has substantially improved the performance of LLM agents on tasks with verifiable outcomes, but it still struggles on open-ended agent tasks with vast solution spaces (e.g., complex travel planning). Due to the absence of objective ground-truth for these tasks, current RL algorithms largely rely on reward models that assign scalar scores to individual responses. We contend that such pointwise scoring suffers from an inherent discrimination collapse: the reward model struggles to distinguish subtle advantages among different trajectories, resulting in scores within a group being compressed into a narrow range. Consequently, the effective reward signal becomes dominated by noise from the reward model, leading to optimization stagnation. To address this, we propose ArenaRL, a reinforcement learning paradigm that shifts from pointwise scalar scoring to intra-group relative ranking. ArenaRL introduces a process-aware pairwise evaluation mechanism, employing multi-level rubrics to assign fine-grained relative scores to trajectories. Additionally, we construct an intra-group adversarial arena and devise a tournament-based ranking scheme to obtain stable advantage signals. Empirical results confirm that the built seeded single-elimination scheme achieves nearly equivalent advantage estimation accuracy to full pairwise comparisons with O(N^2) complexity, while operating with only O(N) complexity, striking an optimal balance between efficiency and precision. Furthermore, to address the lack of full-cycle benchmarks for open-ended agents, we build Open-Travel and Open-DeepResearch, two high-quality benchmarks featuring a comprehensive pipeline covering SFT, RL training, and multi-dimensional evaluation. Extensive experiments show that ArenaRL substantially outperforms standard RL baselines, enabling LLM agents to generate more robust solutions for complex real-world tasks.

强化学习大模型代理开放任务评分机制

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