用单次采样+蒙特卡洛评分,实现语言模型强化学习中的精准动作奖励分配。
Learning with a Single Rollout via Monte Carlo Pass@k Critic

- 基于单次生成轨迹,用蒙特卡洛结果训练一个逐标记的奖励评判器。
- 在数学推理任务上,Pass@128成功率显著提升,且学习过程稳定。
- 适合需要高效奖励信号的复杂逻辑推理任务,如数学证明生成。
在语言模型的强化学习中,估计标记级优势仍具挑战性,因扩展回合经验收集成本高昂。现有基线方法因重复采样导致轨迹发散,难以定位具体动作的贡献。例如GRPO因奖励稀疏、轨迹异质而受限。为此,本文提出单回合近端策略优化(SR-PPO),通过单次提示采样,利用蒙特卡洛结果训练一个标记级信用评判器。该评判器预测提示前缀的Pass@k成功概率,基于Pass@1尝试。随着k增大,Pass@k趋近于可达性指示器,反映前缀能否导向至少一次成功延续。在显式状态图中,极限情况(k→∞)可在O(|V|+|E|)时间内计算,无需对比采样即可获得可靠信用信号。初步验证显示,SR-PPO学习动态稳定,在HMMT26和AIME24等数学推理基准上,Pass@128成功率持续提升。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
Estimating token-level advantages in reinforcement learning (RL) for language models remains challenging because scaling up episodic experience collection is expensive. The difficulty intensifies for baseline advantage estimation methods, where repeated sampling causes trajectories to diverge into substantially different reasoning prefixes. In this context, RL algorithms such as GRPO prove limited: an outcome reward is too sparse to be attributed to specific actions like intermediate steps, and comparisons across sampled traces are non-trivial because they are heterogeneous. To mitigate both the computational cost of repeated sampling and the difficulty of credit assignment, we study single-rollout proximal policy optimization (SR-PPO) featuring token-level credit assignment in RL for language models. Instead of estimating advantages by normalizing episodic returns within the candidate group, we train a calibrated token-level credit critic using Monte Carlo outcomes from one rollout per prompt. Specifically, we use the critic to predict the Pass@k success probability at the prompt prefix, which is derived from a Pass@1 attempt. This choice yields a more selective learning signal than Pass@1: it discounts easily solved prefixes while prioritizing hard ones whose success probability remains marginal. We show that as $k$ increases, Pass@k converges to a reachability indicator, reflecting whether a prefix can lead to at least one successful continuation. In an explicit state graph, the limit ($k \rightarrow \infty$) can be computed in $O(|V|+|E|)$ time, offering a promising surrogate for direct credit assignment without the need to sample contrastive traces. As an initial validation, SR-PPO exhibits stable learning dynamics, along with consistent gains in Pass@128 success rates on mathematical reasoning benchmarks such as HMMT26 and AIME24.
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