Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Davis, Damek, Recht, Benjamin
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.13651
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866911212002869248
author Davis, Damek
Recht, Benjamin
author_facet Davis, Damek
Recht, Benjamin
contents We show that several popular algorithms for reinforcement learning in large language models with binary rewards can be viewed as stochastic gradient ascent on a monotone transform of the probability of a correct answer given a prompt. In particular, the transformation associated with rejection sampling algorithms is the logarithm and that associated with the GRPO algorithm is the arcsine of the square root.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2510_13651
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle What is the objective of reasoning with reinforcement learning?
Davis, Damek
Recht, Benjamin
Machine Learning
Optimization and Control
We show that several popular algorithms for reinforcement learning in large language models with binary rewards can be viewed as stochastic gradient ascent on a monotone transform of the probability of a correct answer given a prompt. In particular, the transformation associated with rejection sampling algorithms is the logarithm and that associated with the GRPO algorithm is the arcsine of the square root.
title What is the objective of reasoning with reinforcement learning?
topic Machine Learning
Optimization and Control
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.13651