二值奖励导致强化学习输出多样性崩溃,本质是优化目标不唯一。
Binary Rewards and Reinforcement Learning: Fundamental Challenges
- 用二值奖励时,最优策略分布无限多,无法确定唯一解。
- 小温度参数β会迫使模型集中在少数有效输出上,导致覆盖度下降。
- 适合研究语言模型推理与奖励设计的学者参考。
基于可验证奖励的强化学习(RLVR)已成为提升语言模型推理能力的标准方法,但训练中常出现多样性崩溃:单样本准确率上升,多样本覆盖率却下降,甚至低于基线模型。本文从二值奖励的性质出发,揭示其导致策略梯度方法根本性退化——期望奖励最大化的分布集合无限,无唯一最优解。通过KL控制,当β→0时,最优选择为基线模型在有效输出上的条件分布p_*,即最接近基线且完全有效的分布。该选择依赖非对称性:倾斜分布以正向KL收敛至p_*,但p_*不能作为直接优化目标,因任意全支持策略q的KL(q||p_*)为无穷大。我们推导出超参数β与可解释的目标有效性率μ之间的显式关系。在模型误设条件下,降低β会驱动优化器趋向于少数有效输出的高度集中分布,覆盖范围不断缩小。我们在一个简单自回归实验中验证此机制,并指出直接以p_*为目标的替代散度方法(如Kruszewski等2026年提出的)可通过奖励覆盖p_*的支持集,避免此失败模式。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
Reinforcement learning with verifiable rewards (RLVR) has become a standard approach for improving reasoning in language models, yet models trained with RLVR often suffer from diversity collapse: while single-sample accuracy improves, multi-sample coverage degrades, sometimes falling below the base model. We provide a structural account of this phenomenon grounded in the properties of binary rewards. Binary rewards create a fundamental degeneracy for policy gradient methods: the set of distributions maximizing expected reward is infinite, with no distinguished element. KL-control resolves this degeneracy by selecting, in the limit $β\to 0$, the filtered model $p_*:=a(\cdot\mid\mathcal{Y}_1)$ -- the base model conditioned on validity -- which is the unique fully valid distribution closest to the base model in KL divergence. This selection operates through a nontrivial asymmetry: the tilted distribution $p_{[β]}\propto a(y)\,e^{v(y)/β}$ converges to $p_*$ in forward KL as $β\to 0$, yet $p_*$ cannot serve as a direct optimization target because $\mathrm{KL}(q\,\|\,p_*)$ is infinite for any full-support policy $q$. We develop explicit formulas relating the hyperparameter $β$ to the more interpretable target validity rate $μ$. Under model misspecification -- the typical practical regime -- the pressure to decrease $β$ drives the optimizer toward highly concentrated distributions over a small number of valid outputs, collapsing toward ever fewer as $β$ decreases, rather than toward the filtered model. We illustrate this mechanism on a toy autoregressive experiment and discuss how alternative divergences that target $p_*$ directly -- as pursued empirically by \citet{kruszewski_whatever_2026} -- avoid this failure mode by rewarding coverage of $p_*$'s support rather than concentration on high-validity outputs.
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