Pareto-Guided Optimal Transport for Multi-Reward Alignment
On the map: LLM alignment / RLHF / preference optimisation → Diffusion and multimodal model alignment
Abstract (arXiv)
Text-to-image generation models have achieved remarkable progress in preference optimization, yet achieving robust alignment across diverse reward models remains a significant challenge. Existing multi-reward fusion approaches rely on weighted summation, which is costly to tune and insufficient for balancing conflicting objectives. More critically, optimization with reward models is highly susceptible to reward hacking, where reward scores increase while the perceived quality of generated images deteriorates. We demonstrate that optimizing against a unified global target under heterogeneous reward upper bounds can induce reward hacking, a risk further exacerbated by the inherent instability of weak reward models. To mitigate this, we propose a Pareto Frontier-Guided Optimal Transport (PG-OT) framework. Our method constructs a prompt-specific Pareto frontier and maps dominated samples toward it via distribution-aware optimal transport. Furthermore, we develop both online and offline optimization strategies tailored to diverse reward signal characteristics. To provide a more rigorous assessment, we introduce the Joint Domination Rate (JDR) and Joint Collapse Rate (JCR) as principled metrics to quantify multi-reward synergy and reward hacking. Experimental results show that our approach outperforms strong baselines with an 11% gain in JDR and achieves a near 80% win rate in human evaluations.
Key facts. No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026). Placed in Diffusion and multimodal model alignment, one of 10 directions in LLM alignment / RLHF / preference optimisation. Builds on 33 of its 40 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 13 May 2026.
Builds on
33 of 40 references.
Closest ancestors · 8
Same direction, newest first
- 2025PrefGen: Multimodal Preference Learning for Preference-Conditioned Image Generation4 Dec
- 2025Enhancing Reward Models for High-quality Image Generation: Beyond Text-Image Alignment25 Jul
- 2025BalancedDPO: Adaptive Multi-Metric Alignment16 Mar
- 2025Calibrated Multi-Preference Optimization for Aligning Diffusion Models4 Feb
- 2024ReNO: Enhancing One-step Text-to-Image Models through Reward-based Noise Optimization6 Jun
- 2024PRDP: Proximal Reward Difference Prediction for Large-Scale Reward Finetuning of Diffusion Models13 Feb
- 2023Diffusion Model Alignment Using Direct Preference Optimization21 Nov
- 2023Directly Fine-Tuning Diffusion Models on Differentiable Rewards29 Sep
Other references · 25
- 2021Learning Transferable Visual Models From Natural Language Supervisioncited by 33,744
- 2021High-Resolution Image Synthesis with Latent Diffusion Modelscited by 18,863
- 2021Diffusion Models Beat GANs on Image Synthesiscited by 8,255
- 2023Direct Preference Optimization: Your Language Model is Secretly a Reward Modelcited by 8,065
- 2015Deep Unsupervised Learning using Nonequilibrium Thermodynamicscited by 7,058
- 2023SDXL: Improving Latent Diffusion Models for High-Resolution Image Synthesiscited by 4,356
- 2024Scaling Rectified Flow Transformers for High-Resolution Image Synthesiscited by 4,181
- 2019Generative Modeling by Estimating Gradients of the Data Distributioncited by 4,101
- 2013Sinkhorn Distances: Lightspeed Computation of Optimal Transportation Distancescited by 2,316
- 2019Fine-Tuning Language Models from Human Preferencescited by 2,150
- 2023ImageReward: Learning and Evaluating Human Preferences for Text-to-Image Generationcited by 1,045
- 2023Pick-a-Pic: An Open Dataset of User Preferences for Text-to-Image Generationcited by 977
13 more
- 2023Human Preference Score v2: A Solid Benchmark for Evaluating Human Preferences of Text-to-Image Synthesiscited by 890
- 2022DiffusionDB: A Large-scale Prompt Gallery Dataset for Text-to-Image Generative Modelscited by 379
- 2023Reinforcement Learning with Human Feedback: Learning Dynamic Choices via Pessimismcited by 69
- 2024TextCraftor: Your Text Encoder Can be Image Quality Controllercited by 27
- 2025Learning to Think: Information-Theoretic Reinforcement Fine-Tuning for LLMscited by 16
- 2019Reinforcement Learning for Joint Optimization of Multiple Rewardscited by 15
- 2024Dynamic Multi-Reward Weighting for Multi-Style Controllable Generationcited by 13
- 2024Powerful and Flexible: Personalized Text-to-Image Generation via Reinforcement Learningcited by 11
- 2025Causal Reward Adjustment: Mitigating Reward Hacking in External Reasoning via Backdoor Correctioncited by 5
- 2025Learning User Preferences for Image Generation Modelcited by 5
- 2025Group Causal Policy Optimization for Post-Training Large Language Modelscited by 4
- 2026On the Plasticity and Stability for Post-Training Large Language Modelscited by 4
- 2026Say Cheese! Detail-Preserving Portrait Collection Generation via Natural Language Editscited by 1
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Not cited yet.
Similar, not cited
Close in wording, no citation either way
- 2024Elucidating Optimal Reward-Diversity Tradeoffs in Text-to-Image Diffusion Models
- 2026Diamond Maps: Efficient Reward Alignment via Stochastic Flow Maps
- 2023Rewarded soups: towards Pareto-optimal alignment by interpolating weights fine-tuned on diverse rewards
- 2026Reward Score Matching: Unifying Reward-based Fine-tuning for Flow and Diffusion Models
- 2024A Dense Reward View on Aligning Text-to-Image Diffusion with Preference
- 2026Traversing the Satisfaction-Diversity Frontier in Text-to-Image Diffusion
- 2026Beyond Pairwise Preferences: Listwise Reward-Aware Alignment for Diffusion Models
- 2025Alignment and Safety of Diffusion Models via Reinforcement Learning and Reward Modeling: A Survey