Two is better than one: A Collapse-free Multi-Reward RLIF Training Framework
On the map: LLM reasoning → Reinforcement learning for reasoning
Abstract (arXiv)
Reinforcement learning with verifiable rewards (RLVR) has substantially improved the reasoning ability of LLMs, but often depends on external supervision from human annotations or gold-standard solutions. Reinforcement learning from internal feedback (RLIF) has recently emerged as a scalable unsupervised alternative, using signals extracted from the model itself. However, existing RLIF methods typically rely on a single internal reward, which can lead to reward hacking, entropy collapse, and degraded reasoning structure. We propose a multi-reward RLIF framework that decomposes the training signal into two complementary components: an answer-level reward based on cluster voting and a completion-level reward based on token-wise self-certainty. To combine these signals robustly, we apply GDPO-based normalization to reduce reward-scale imbalance. We further introduce KL-Cov regularization, which targets low-entropy token distributions responsible for disproportionate entropy reduction, preserving exploration and preventing late-stage collapse. Across mathematical reasoning and code-generation benchmarks, our method improves stability and robustness over prior unsupervised RL approaches, while achieving performance close to supervised RLVR methods. These results show that complementary internal rewards, combined with targeted regularization, can support stable long-horizon reasoning without relying on external ground-truth supervision. Code will be released soon.
Key facts. No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026). Placed in Reinforcement learning for reasoning, one of 17 directions in LLM reasoning. Builds on 25 of its 30 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 21 May 2026.
Builds on
25 of 30 references.
Closest ancestors · 13
Same direction, newest first
- 2026GDPO: Group reward-Decoupled Normalization Policy Optimization for Multi-reward RL Optimization8 Jan
- 2025Exploration vs Exploitation: Rethinking RLVR through Clipping, Entropy, and Spurious Reward18 Dec
- 2025Co-rewarding: Stable Self-supervised RL for Eliciting Reasoning in Large Language Models1 Aug
- 2025No Free Lunch: Rethinking Internal Feedback for LLM Reasoning20 Jun
- 2025Maximizing Confidence Alone Improves Reasoning28 May
- 2025The Entropy Mechanism of Reinforcement Learning for Reasoning Language Models28 May
- 2025Reinforcing General Reasoning without Verifiers27 May
- 2025Can Large Reasoning Models Self-Train?27 May
- 2025Learning to Reason without External Rewards26 May
- 2025The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Entropy Minimization in LLM Reasoning21 May
- 2025MiMo: Unlocking the Reasoning Potential of Language Model -- From Pretraining to Posttraining12 May
- 2025Absolute Zero: Reinforced Self-play Reasoning with Zero Data6 May
1 more
Other references · 12
- 2021Training Verifiers to Solve Math Word Problemscited by 10,109
- 2024DeepSeekMath: Pushing the Limits of Mathematical Reasoning in Open Language Modelscited by 9,379
- 2021Measuring Mathematical Problem Solving With the MATH Datasetcited by 5,371
- 2024Qwen2.5 Technical Reportcited by 4,942
- 2024LiveCodeBench: Holistic and Contamination Free Evaluation of Large Language Models for Codecited by 2,004
- 2024MMLU-Pro: A More Robust and Challenging Multi-Task Language Understanding Benchmarkcited by 1,848
- 2022Scaling Laws for Reward Model Overoptimizationcited by 1,095
- 2023Semantic Uncertainty: Linguistic Invariances for Uncertainty Estimation in Natural Language Generationcited by 819
- 2024CRUXEval: A Benchmark for Code Reasoning, Understanding and Executioncited by 300
- 2025R-Zero: Self-Evolving Reasoning LLM from Zero Datacited by 228
- 2026How Far Can Unsupervised RLVR Scale LLM Training?cited by 30
- 2025SSR-Zero: Simple Self-Rewarding Reinforcement Learning for Machine Translationcited by 13
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Close in wording, no citation either way
- 2025ConfClip: Confidence-Weighted and Clipped Reward for Reinforcement Learning in LLMs
- 2025RLPR: Extrapolating RLVR to General Domains without Verifiers
- 2025RL-PLUS: Countering Capability Boundary Collapse of LLMs in Reinforcement Learning with Hybrid-policy Optimization
- 2025Reinforcement Learning with Verifiable Rewards Implicitly Incentivizes Correct Reasoning in Base LLMs
- 2024Teaching Large Language Models to Reason with Reinforcement Learning
- 2026Boosting LLM Exploration via Weak-Model Guidance in RLVR
- 2025RLBFF: Binary Flexible Feedback to bridge between Human Feedback & Verifiable Rewards
- 2025Extending RLVR to Open-Ended Tasks via Verifiable Multiple-Choice Reformulation