SSRL: Self-Search Reinforcement Learning

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Fan, Yuchen, Zhang, Kaiyan, Zhou, Heng, Zuo, Yuxin, Chen, Yanxu, Fu, Yu, Long, Xinwei, Zhu, Xuekai, Jiang, Che, Zhang, Yuchen, Kang, Li, Chen, Gang, Huang, Cheng, He, Zhizhou, Wang, Bingning, Bai, Lei, Ding, Ning, Zhou, Bowen
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Fan, Yuchen
Zhang, Kaiyan
Zhou, Heng
Zuo, Yuxin
Chen, Yanxu
Fu, Yu
Long, Xinwei
Zhu, Xuekai
Jiang, Che
Zhang, Yuchen
Kang, Li
Chen, Gang
Huang, Cheng
He, Zhizhou
Wang, Bingning
Bai, Lei
Ding, Ning
Zhou, Bowen
author_facet Fan, Yuchen
Zhang, Kaiyan
Zhou, Heng
Zuo, Yuxin
Chen, Yanxu
Fu, Yu
Long, Xinwei
Zhu, Xuekai
Jiang, Che
Zhang, Yuchen
Kang, Li
Chen, Gang
Huang, Cheng
He, Zhizhou
Wang, Bingning
Bai, Lei
Ding, Ning
Zhou, Bowen
contents We investigate the potential of large language models (LLMs) to serve as efficient simulators for agentic search tasks in reinforcement learning (RL), thereby reducing dependence on costly interactions with external search engines. To this end, we first quantify the intrinsic search capability of LLMs via structured prompting and repeated sampling, which we term Self-Search. Our results reveal that LLMs exhibit strong scaling behavior with respect to the inference budget, achieving high pass@k on question-answering benchmarks, including the challenging BrowseComp task. Building on these observations, we introduce Self-Search RL (SSRL), which enhances LLMs' Self-Search capability through format-based and rule-based rewards. SSRL enables models to iteratively refine their knowledge utilization internally, without requiring access to external tools. Empirical evaluations demonstrate that SSRL-trained policy models provide a cost-effective and stable environment for search-driven RL training, reducing reliance on external search engines and facilitating robust sim-to-real transfer. We draw the following conclusions: 1) LLMs possess world knowledge that can be effectively elicited to achieve high performance; 2) SSRL demonstrates the potential of leveraging internal knowledge to reduce hallucination; 3) SSRL-trained models integrate seamlessly with external search engines without additional effort. Our findings highlight the potential of LLMs to support more scalable RL agent training.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2508_10874
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle SSRL: Self-Search Reinforcement Learning
Fan, Yuchen
Zhang, Kaiyan
Zhou, Heng
Zuo, Yuxin
Chen, Yanxu
Fu, Yu
Long, Xinwei
Zhu, Xuekai
Jiang, Che
Zhang, Yuchen
Kang, Li
Chen, Gang
Huang, Cheng
He, Zhizhou
Wang, Bingning
Bai, Lei
Ding, Ning
Zhou, Bowen
Computation and Language
We investigate the potential of large language models (LLMs) to serve as efficient simulators for agentic search tasks in reinforcement learning (RL), thereby reducing dependence on costly interactions with external search engines. To this end, we first quantify the intrinsic search capability of LLMs via structured prompting and repeated sampling, which we term Self-Search. Our results reveal that LLMs exhibit strong scaling behavior with respect to the inference budget, achieving high pass@k on question-answering benchmarks, including the challenging BrowseComp task. Building on these observations, we introduce Self-Search RL (SSRL), which enhances LLMs' Self-Search capability through format-based and rule-based rewards. SSRL enables models to iteratively refine their knowledge utilization internally, without requiring access to external tools. Empirical evaluations demonstrate that SSRL-trained policy models provide a cost-effective and stable environment for search-driven RL training, reducing reliance on external search engines and facilitating robust sim-to-real transfer. We draw the following conclusions: 1) LLMs possess world knowledge that can be effectively elicited to achieve high performance; 2) SSRL demonstrates the potential of leveraging internal knowledge to reduce hallucination; 3) SSRL-trained models integrate seamlessly with external search engines without additional effort. Our findings highlight the potential of LLMs to support more scalable RL agent training.
title SSRL: Self-Search Reinforcement Learning
topic Computation and Language
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.10874