arXiv:2606.21795cs.LG2026-06

提出离散化奖励模型,解决其对相似回答过度敏感的问题。

Discretizing Reward Models

论文配图:Discretizing Reward Models
图 1 · 摘自论文原文
  • 用蒙特卡洛丢弃法对神经奖励模型进行无训练离散化,生成离散奖励簇
  • 实验显示离散化后能减少奖励黑客行为,提升强化学习策略性能
  • 新评估指标区分判别力与特异性,更准确衡量奖励模型质量

尽管奖励模型在强化学习中广泛应用,但其作用机制仍不清晰。传统上,奖励模型通过连续分数捕捉响应质量差异,看似能精细区分优劣,但研究发现多数模型存在过度敏感问题:对实际等效的回答赋予不同评分。理论上,即使表现完美的奖励模型也可能过度敏感;实证上,这会导致劣质策略出现。为此,本文提出以“判别力”和“特异性”(即反向的过度敏感)替代传统“准确性”作为评估标准,并设计一种无需训练的离散化方法——利用蒙特卡洛丢弃在任意神经奖励模型上生成离散奖励簇。理论证明存在低损失的离散化方案;实验证明在受控与真实强化学习场景中,离散化奖励能显著降低奖励黑客现象,生成更优策略。

原文摘要 · Abstract (English)

Despite their widespread use, the role of reward models in shaping reinforcement learning is poorly understood. Reward models offer a tempting promise: they automatically estimate response quality in the absence of verifiers or human judges. Unlike "verifiable rewards" which typically produce binary scores, reward models typically produce continuous scores, allowing them to be sensitive to fine-grained differences in responses. However, we show this apparent strength is a serious weakness: many popular reward models are oversensitive, assigning different scores to equally good responses. Theoretically, we show that seemingly perfect reward models can be highly oversensitive; empirically, this oversensitivity can lead to bad policies. In place of existing notions of "reward model accuracy," we propose evaluating reward models using distinct measures of "discriminative ability" and "specificity" (the complement of oversensitivity). As a solution, we describe a training-free algorithm that uses Monte Carlo dropout on any neural reward model to produce discrete reward clusters. Theoretically, we prove there exist discretizations that reduce oversensitivity at minimal expense of discriminative ability; empirically we show, in both controlled and natural RL settings, that discretizing rewards leads to less reward hacking and better policies than training on the original rewards.

奖励模型强化学习离散化可解释性

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