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Received β€” 27 May 2026 ⏭ cs.AI, q-bio.NC updates on arXiv.org

Design Conditions for Intra-Group Learning of Sequence-Level Rewards: Token Gradient Cancellation

arXiv:2604.13088v2 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: Reinforcement learning for multi-step reasoning with large language models (LLMs) typically relies on sparse terminal rewards, which creates a poorly conditioned credit-assignment problem: the final feedback is propagated uniformly across all intermediate decisions. This leads to high gradient variance, unstable training, and many ineffective updates, ultimately limiting sustained model improvement. We propose a counterfactual-comparison framework for credit assignment. For each input, the framework samples multiple reasoning trajectories and treats their differences as implicit approximations to alternative decisions. This yields an implicit process-level advantage estimator that converts sparse terminal rewards into step-sensitive learning signals. Building on this framework, we introduce Implicit Behavior Policy Optimization (IBPO), which substantially improves training stability and the performance ceiling on mathematical and code-reasoning benchmarks. Our results point to a promising direction for unlocking the reasoning potential of LLMs.

Rethinking the Comparison Unit in Sequence-Level Reinforcement Learning: An Equal-Length Paired Training Framework from Loss Correction to Sample Construction

arXiv:2604.17328v2 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: This paper investigates the length problem in sequence-level relative reinforcement learning. We observe that, although existing methods partially alleviate length-related phenomena, a more fundamental issue remains insufficiently characterized: the comparison units used during training lack inherent comparability. Building on this observation, we propose a new perspective: the length problem should not be viewed merely as a loss-scaling or normalization bias, but rather as a \emph{comparison unit construction} problem. We further establish a sample-construction-based training framework that, instead of applying post-hoc corrections to unequal-length responses, proactively constructs equal-length, alignable, and comparable training segments during generation. Within this framework, we propose EqLen, a concrete method applicable to group-relative comparison algorithms such as GRPO, GSPO, and RLOO. Through dual-track synchronous generation, prefix inheritance, and segment masking, EqLen efficiently collects effective equal-length training segments and enables stable

Internalizing Outcome Supervision into Process Supervision: A New Paradigm for Reinforcement Learning for Reasoning

arXiv:2605.05226v2 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: The central challenge of reinforcement learning for reasoning lies not only in the sparsity of outcome-level supervision, but more fundamentally in how to transform feedback provided only at the end of a sequence into fine-grained learning signals that can guide intermediate reasoning steps. Existing approaches either rely on outcome-level rewards for sequence-level optimization, which makes precise credit assignment difficult, or depend on externally constructed process supervision, which is costly and difficult to scale sustainably. To address this, we propose a new perspective: reinforcement learning for reasoning can be understood as the problem of internalizing outcome supervision into process supervision. From this perspective, we introduce a supervision-internalization method for reinforcement learning for reasoning, enabling the model to automatically extract process-level learning signals through identifying, correcting, and reusing failed reasoning trajectories, thereby achieving finer-grained policy optimization under outcome-only supervision. We further abstract this idea into a new training paradigm, in which the model continually generates and refines its own internal process supervision during reinforcement learning, opening a new path for fine-grained credit assignment in reinforcement learning for reasoning that differs from externally provided process supervision.

Reducing Credit Assignment Variance via Counterfactual Reasoning Paths

arXiv:2605.16302v2 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: Reinforcement learning for multi-step reasoning with large language models (LLMs) typically relies on sparse terminal rewards, which creates a poorly conditioned credit-assignment problem: the final feedback is propagated uniformly across all intermediate decisions. This leads to high gradient variance, unstable training, and many ineffective updates, ultimately limiting sustained model improvement. We propose a counterfactual-comparison framework for credit assignment. For each input, the framework samples multiple reasoning trajectories and treats their differences as implicit approximations to alternative decisions. This yields an implicit process-level advantage estimator that converts sparse terminal rewards into step-sensitive learning signals. Building on this framework, we introduce Implicit Behavior Policy Optimization (IBPO), which substantially improves training stability and the performance ceiling on mathematical and code-reasoning benchmarks. Our results point to a promising direction for unlocking the reasoning potential of LLMs.
Received β€” 2 April 2026 ⏭ cs.AI, q-bio.NC updates on arXiv.org

ARROW: An Adaptive Rollout and Routing Method for Global Weather Forecasting

arXiv:2510.09734v2 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: Weather forecasting is a fundamental task in spatiotemporal data analysis, with broad applications across a wide range of domains. Existing data-driven forecasting methods typically model atmospheric dynamics over a fixed short time interval, e.g., 6 hours, and rely on naive autoregression-based rollout for long-term forecasting, e.g., 5 days. However, this paradigm suffers from two key limitations: (1) it often inadequately models the spatial and multi-scale temporal dependencies inherent in global weather systems, and (2) the rollout strategy struggles to balance error accumulation with the capture of fine-grained atmospheric variations. In this study, we propose ARROW, an Adaptive-Rollout Multi-scale temporal Routing method for Global Weather Forecasting. To contend with the first limitation, we construct a multi-interval forecasting model that forecasts weather across different time intervals. Within the model, the Shared-Private Mixture-of-Experts captures both shared patterns and specific characteristics of atmospheric dynamics across different time scales, while Ring Positional Encoding accurately encodes the circular latitude structure of the Earth when representing spatial information. For the second limitation, we develop an adaptive rollout scheduler based on reinforcement learning, which selects the most suitable time interval to forecast according to the current weather state. Experimental results demonstrate that ARROW achieves state-of-the-art performance in global weather forecasting, establishing a promising paradigm in this field.
Received β€” 5 March 2026 ⏭ cs.AI, q-bio.NC updates on arXiv.org

Order Is Not Layout: Order-to-Space Bias in Image Generation

arXiv:2603.03714v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: We study a systematic bias in modern image generation models: the mention order of entities in text spuriously determines spatial layout and entity--role binding. We term this phenomenon Order-to-Space Bias (OTS) and show that it arises in both text-to-image and image-to-image generation, often overriding grounded cues and causing incorrect layouts or swapped assignments. To quantify OTS, we introduce OTS-Bench, which isolates order effects with paired prompts differing only in entity order and evaluates models along two dimensions: homogenization and correctness. Experiments show that Order-to-Space Bias (OTS) is widespread in modern image generation models, and provide evidence that it is primarily data-driven and manifests during the early stages of layout formation. Motivated by this insight, we show that both targeted fine-tuning and early-stage intervention strategies can substantially reduce OTS, while preserving generation quality.
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