mlsanityData to 14 Oct 2026

Reward as An Agent for Embodied World Models

arXiv 2606.19990 ↗First posted 18 Jun 2026cs.AIcited by 3

On the map: World models → Latent dynamics models and model-based RL

also in 1 more
Abstract (arXiv)

While RL has become a promising tool for refining world models, existing methods largely rely on conservative rollouts near the training distribution, limiting exploration, behavioral diversity, and richer dynamic discovery. In this work, we challenge this conservative paradigm. We argue that the core limitation is not exploration itself, but the lack of reliable verification strategies to support broader exploration. Without reliable verification, expanded exploration becomes highly susceptible to reward hacking, where policies exploit imperfect rewards without achieving genuine improvement. To evaluate this motivation, we instantiate our method in embodied world models, where physical plausibility, and task completion provide a rigorous testbed for scalable RL under complex dynamics. On the verification side, we introduce Reward as an Agent, an agentic reward framework that actively evaluates generated behaviors to provide robust reward signals and mitigate reward hacking under distribution shifts. On the exploration side, we introduce Dynamic-Aware Rollout Diversification through DynDiff-GRPO, which explicitly expands action-space exploration to diversify trajectories, broaden state-action coverage, and encourage richer embodied behaviors beyond conservative rollout regimes. By unifying Reward as an Agent with DynDiff-GRPO, we enable RL on a more reliable reward foundation with substantially diversified sampling, effectively mitigating reward hacking while yielding significant accuracy gains across multiple open-source world models, thereby demonstrating that broader exploration can scale successfully when grounded in robust verification.

Key facts. Cited by 3 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026). Placed in Latent dynamics models and model-based RL, one of 11 directions in World models. Builds on 10 of its 17 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 18 Jun 2026.

Builds on

10 of 17 references.

References · 10

  1. 2023Efficient Memory Management for Large Language Model Serving with PagedAttentioncited by 5,944
  2. 2024Scaling Rectified Flow Transformers for High-Resolution Image Synthesiscited by 4,181
  3. 2024DROID: A Large-Scale In-The-Wild Robot Manipulation Datasetcited by 852
  4. 2025MixGRPO: Unlocking Flow-based GRPO Efficiency with Mixed ODE-SDEcited by 178
  5. 2025Pref-GRPO: Pairwise Preference Reward-based GRPO for Stable Text-to-Image Reinforcement Learningcited by 92
  6. 2025Coefficients-Preserving Sampling for Reinforcement Learning with Flow Matchingcited by 56
  7. 2025PAI-Bench: A Comprehensive Benchmark For Physical AIcited by 34
  8. 2026Rethinking Video Generation Model for the Embodied Worldcited by 33
  9. 2026Manifold-Aware Exploration for Reinforcement Learning in Video Generationcited by 15
  10. 2026Unified Personalized Reward Model for Vision Generationcited by 13

Built on by

Cited by year (2026 to 14 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2026: 3.

3 papers.

Similar, not cited

Close in wording, no citation either way

  1. 2025RoboScape-R: Unified Reward-Observation World Models for Generalizable Robotics Training via RL
  2. 2026Agentic Reward Modeling: Verifying GUI Agent via Progressive Trajectory-Grounded Interaction
  3. 2024Active Inference as a Model of Agency
  4. 2026Reward Prediction with Factorized World States
  5. 2026Foundation World Models for Agents that Learn, Verify, and Adapt Reliably Beyond Static Environments
  6. 2024The Dark Side of Rich Rewards: Understanding and Mitigating Noise in VLM Rewards
  7. 2025The Missing Reward: Active Inference in the Era of Experience
  8. 2026Discovering Reinforcement Learning Interfaces with Large Language Models