用小模型引导大模型,提升推理多样性。
Boosting LLM Exploration via Weak-Model Guidance in RLVR

- 用弱小模型生成部分推理路径,引导大模型探索新思路。
- 在数学基准上,k越大效果越明显,推理覆盖范围显著扩大。
- 无需额外微调或复杂设计,简单高效解决熵坍缩问题。
强化学习结合可验证奖励(RLVR)虽能显著提升大语言模型的推理能力,但常导致策略熵下降,使推理路径变窄,大k值下的通过率(pass@$k$)降低。现有方法多通过算法正则化缓解熵坍缩,却忽视了跨模型的非参数扰动。本文提出一种简单有效的方法:不依赖内部探索,而是让目标模型基于小型弱模型生成的部分推理轨迹进行回答。这些陌生前缀有效打破过自信,促使探索不同推理路径。实证研究揭示了外源前缀对探索动态的影响机制。在多个数学基准测试中,该方法持续优于原始RLVR,且随着k增大,性能提升愈发显著,充分扩展了推理覆盖范围。此外,该方法无需额外监督微调、复杂奖励设计或繁复提示,即可有效缓解熵坍缩。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
Reinforcement Learning with Verifiable Rewards (RLVR) significantly improves LLM reasoning but often causes a drop in policy entropy, leading to narrowed reasoning coverage and degraded pass@$k$ for large $k$. While existing methods mitigate this entropy collapse through algorithmic regularizations, cross-model non-parametric perturbation is also neglected. In this work, we propose a simple yet effective approach to preserve the generative diversity of LLMs during RLVR. Instead of relying solely on internal exploration, we force the target model to generate answers based on partial reasoning trajectories generated by a smaller, weaker language models. These unfamiliar prefixes effectively disrupt over-confidence and encourage the exploration of distinct reasoning paths. We empirically study the potential of outer prefixes, revealing the mechanism of the impact of distributional discrepancy to the exploration dynamics in RLVR training. Experiments across multiple mathematical benchmarks show that our method consistently outperforms vanilla RLVR. Notably, the performance gain becomes increasingly pronounced as $k$ scales up, demonstrating a substantial expansion of reasoning coverage. Furthermore, our approach efficiently mitigates entropy collapse without requiring additional SFT, intricate reward designs, or complex prompting.
Thank you to arXiv for use of its open access interoperability. PaperDance 不是 arXiv 官方产品;中文卡片由大模型生成,请以原文为准。