提出动态梯度门控,实时阻止大模型强化学习中有害梯度,提升采样效率
When to Stop Reusing: Dynamic Gradient Gating for Sample-Efficient RLVR
- 通过监测lm_head梯度变化,实时判断是否应停止重用样本
- 在数学、ALFWorld等任务上实现2.93倍采样效率提升
- 适合追求高效强化学习训练的大模型研究者
基于可验证奖励的强化学习(RLVR)已成为大语言模型高级推理的主流范式,但推理样本获取成本高,样本效率成为关键瓶颈。常规做法是将每个样本批次用于多次梯度更新,但在RLVR中会加剧策略漂移,导致性能严重下降。如何及时检测衰退并停止重用仍是一个开放难题。本文发现‘权重失衡发散’(DWD)现象:性能下降与lm_head权重变化急剧上升同步,而中间层保持稳定。实证表明DWD在多种模型和任务中一致出现。理论证明:(i) 有害梯度集中于lm_head,中间层受结构抑制;(ii) lm_head梯度范数下界约束策略漂移。据此提出动态梯度门控(DGG),实时监控lm_head梯度范数,拦截有害梯度。DGG在数学、ALFWorld、WebShop和搜索增强问答任务中,达到或超过单次使用基线,实现最高2.93倍采样效率与2.14倍实际加速。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
Reinforcement Learning with Verifiable Rewards (RLVR) has become the dominant paradigm for advanced reasoning in Large Language Models (LLMs), but rollout samples are expensive to obtain, making sample efficiency a critical bottleneck. A natural remedy is to reuse each rollout batch for multiple gradient updates, a standard practice in classical RL. Yet in RLVR, this amplifies policy shift, leading to severe performance degradation. Detecting the onset of degradation early enough to stop reuse remains an open and challenging problem. We close this gap by identifying the \textit{Disproportionate Weight Divergence (DWD)} phenomenon: performance degradation is synchronized with a sharp surge in the \texttt{lm\_head} weight change, while intermediate layers remain stable. Empirically, we verify that DWD emerges consistently across diverse LLMs and tasks. Theoretically, we prove that (i) harmful gradients concentrate at the \texttt{lm\_head} while intermediate layers are structurally attenuated, and (ii) the \texttt{lm\_head} gradient norm lower-bounds the policy divergence. These results establish the \texttt{lm\_head} gradient norm as a principled, real-time signal of catastrophic policy shift. Guided by this insight, we propose \textit{Dynamic Gradient Gating (DGG)}, a lightweight intervention that monitors the \texttt{lm\_head} gradient norm in real time and intercepts harmful gradients before they corrupt the optimizer. DGG consistently matches or exceeds the standard single-use baseline, achieving up to $2.93\times$ sample efficiency and $2.14\times$ wall-clock speedup across math, ALFWorld, WebShop, and search-augmented QA tasks.
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