Towards Analyzing and Understanding the Limitations of VAPO: A Theoretical Perspective

Fuente: arXiv
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Autores principales: Shao, Jintian, Cheng, Yiming, Huang, Hongyi, Zhang, Beiwen, Wu, Zhiyu, Shan, You, Zheng, Mingkai
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2025
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author Shao, Jintian
Cheng, Yiming
Huang, Hongyi
Zhang, Beiwen
Wu, Zhiyu
Shan, You
Zheng, Mingkai
author_facet Shao, Jintian
Cheng, Yiming
Huang, Hongyi
Zhang, Beiwen
Wu, Zhiyu
Shan, You
Zheng, Mingkai
contents The VAPO framework has demonstrated significant empirical success in enhancing the efficiency and reliability of reinforcement learning for long chain-of-thought (CoT) reasoning tasks with large language models (LLMs). By systematically addressing challenges such as value model bias, heterogeneous sequence lengths, and sparse reward signals, VAPO achieves state-of-the-art performance. While its practical benefits are evident, a deeper theoretical understanding of its underlying mechanisms and potential limitations is crucial for guiding future advancements. This paper aims to initiate such a discussion by exploring VAPO from a theoretical perspective, highlighting areas where its assumptions might be challenged and where further investigation could yield more robust and generalizable reasoning agents. We delve into the intricacies of value function approximation in complex reasoning spaces, the optimality of adaptive advantage estimation, the impact of token-level optimization, and the enduring challenges of exploration and generalization.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2505_17997
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Towards Analyzing and Understanding the Limitations of VAPO: A Theoretical Perspective
Shao, Jintian
Cheng, Yiming
Huang, Hongyi
Zhang, Beiwen
Wu, Zhiyu
Shan, You
Zheng, Mingkai
Machine Learning
Computation and Language
The VAPO framework has demonstrated significant empirical success in enhancing the efficiency and reliability of reinforcement learning for long chain-of-thought (CoT) reasoning tasks with large language models (LLMs). By systematically addressing challenges such as value model bias, heterogeneous sequence lengths, and sparse reward signals, VAPO achieves state-of-the-art performance. While its practical benefits are evident, a deeper theoretical understanding of its underlying mechanisms and potential limitations is crucial for guiding future advancements. This paper aims to initiate such a discussion by exploring VAPO from a theoretical perspective, highlighting areas where its assumptions might be challenged and where further investigation could yield more robust and generalizable reasoning agents. We delve into the intricacies of value function approximation in complex reasoning spaces, the optimality of adaptive advantage estimation, the impact of token-level optimization, and the enduring challenges of exploration and generalization.
title Towards Analyzing and Understanding the Limitations of VAPO: A Theoretical Perspective
topic Machine Learning
Computation and Language
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.17997