arXiv:2607.21627cs.AIcs.LG2026-07

发现大模型系统中模块会偏离分工,提出新方法让其守岗。

Do Modules Stay in Their Lane? Role Drift in Compound LLM Systems

论文配图:Do Modules Stay in Their Lane? Role Drift in Compound LLM Systems
图 1 · 摘自论文原文
  • 用角色锚定正则化约束模块按分工行事
  • 实验显示86%的强化学习提升来自角色违规捷径
  • 适合关注模型可解释性与系统可信度的研究者

端到端强化学习能提升复合大模型系统的准确性,但无法约束模块内部的任务分工。我们识别出一种名为角色漂移的失效模式:模块在保持或提升最终任务表现的同时,通过隐蔽的角色违规捷径偏离原定职责,而系统级评估无法察觉。为使角色漂移可见可控,我们提出角色锚定(Role Anchor)正则化方法,在端到端训练中调节模块偏离指定角色的程度。核心思想是保持角色提示相对于中性提示对模块下一个词预测的影响差异,以此作为角色预期效果的代理指标。在两个复合大模型流水线上的实验揭示了仅凭准确率无法检测的角色漂移:一个本应拆分问题的分解器反而将答案植入子问题,一个本应从检索段落中回答的阅读器则依赖参数化记忆。事实上,在分解器流水线上,这种捷径贡献了86%的表观强化学习增益;一旦强制分解器遵守角色,该增益几乎消失,表明终端准确率可能严重夸大系统的真实学习程度。在两条流水线上,角色锚定均有效缓解角色漂移,代价为可调的准确率损失,具体取决于流水线和锚定强度。额外梯度分析表明,该正则化并非简单抑制学习,而是降低与角色漂移方向的对齐度。

原文摘要 · Abstract (English)

End-to-end reinforcement learning can improve the accuracy of compound LLM systems, but it does not constrain how modules divide labor internally. We identify Role Drift, a failure mode in which modules preserve or improve end-task performance while deviating from their assigned roles through role-violating shortcuts that remain invisible to system-level evaluation. To make role drift observable and controllable, we propose Role Anchor, a regularizer that modulates how much each module deviates from its assigned role during end-to-end training. The key idea is to preserve how the role prompt shifts the module's next-token predictions relative to a neutral prompt, which serves as a proxy for the role's intended effect during training. Experiments on two compound LLM pipelines reveal role drift that accuracy alone fails to detect: a decomposer meant to split a question into sub-questions for a separate solver instead plants the answer in them, and a reader meant to answer from retrieved passages instead falls back on parametric memory. In fact, on the decomposer pipeline this shortcut drives most of the apparent RL gain: 86% of it vanishes once the decomposer is held to its role, indicating that terminal accuracy alone can badly overstate how much a compound system has genuinely learned. Across both pipelines, Role Anchor mitigates role drift at a tunable accuracy cost that varies by pipeline and anchor strength. Additional gradient analysis suggests that the regularizer reduces alignment with the role-drift direction rather than simply suppressing learning.

大模型系统角色漂移强化学习可解释性

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