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Reinforcement Learning Enhanced LLMs: A Survey

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arxiv 2412.10400 v3 pith:I7N2KOTX submitted 2024-12-05 cs.CL cs.AIcs.LG

Reinforcement Learning Enhanced LLMs: A Survey

classification cs.CL cs.AIcs.LG
keywords llmslearningreinforcementrl-enhancedchallengeshumanrewardadvancements
verification ladder T0 review T1 audit T2 compute T3 formal T4 reserved
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Reinforcement learning (RL) enhanced large language models (LLMs), particularly exemplified by DeepSeek-R1, have exhibited outstanding performance. Despite the effectiveness in improving LLM capabilities, its implementation remains highly complex, requiring complex algorithms, reward modeling strategies, and optimization techniques. This complexity poses challenges for researchers and practitioners in developing a systematic understanding of RL-enhanced LLMs. Moreover, the absence of a comprehensive survey summarizing existing research on RL-enhanced LLMs has limited progress in this domain, hindering further advancements. In this work, we are going to make a systematic review of the most up-to-date state of knowledge on RL-enhanced LLMs, attempting to consolidate and analyze the rapidly growing research in this field, helping researchers understand the current challenges and advancements. Specifically, we (1) detail the basics of RL; (2) introduce popular RL-enhanced LLMs; (3) review researches on two widely-used reward model-based RL techniques: Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback (RLHF) and Reinforcement Learning from AI Feedback (RLAIF); and (4) explore Direct Preference Optimization (DPO), a set of methods that bypass the reward model to directly use human preference data for aligning LLM outputs with human expectations. We will also point out current challenges and deficiencies of existing methods and suggest some avenues for further improvements. Project page of this work can be found at https://github.com/ShuheWang1998/Reinforcement-Learning-Enhanced-LLMs-A-Survey.

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Cited by 12 Pith papers

Reviewed papers in the Pith corpus that reference this work. Sorted by Pith novelty score.

  1. Distributed Direct Preference Optimization

    cs.LG 2026-05 unverdicted novelty 7.0

    First convergence analysis of DPO under federated and decentralized training, characterizing rates via client drift, communication frequency, preference heterogeneity, and graph spectral connectivity.

  2. Generate, Filter, Control, Replay: A Comprehensive Survey of Rollout Strategies for LLM Reinforcement Learning

    cs.LG 2026-04 unverdicted novelty 7.0

    This survey introduces the Generate-Filter-Control-Replay (GFCR) taxonomy to structure rollout pipelines for RL-based post-training of reasoning LLMs.

  3. ReRec: Reasoning-Augmented LLM-based Recommendation Assistant via Reinforcement Fine-tuning

    cs.IR 2026-04 unverdicted novelty 6.0

    ReRec uses reinforcement fine-tuning with dual-graph reward shaping, reasoning-aware advantage estimation, and online curriculum scheduling to improve LLM reasoning and performance in recommendation tasks.

  4. The Landscape of Agentic Reinforcement Learning for LLMs: A Survey

    cs.AI 2025-09 accept novelty 6.0

    Survey that defines agentic RL for LLMs via POMDPs, introduces a taxonomy of planning/tool-use/memory/reasoning capabilities and domains, and compiles open environments from over 500 papers.

  5. Modularized Reinforcement Learning on LLMs: From MDP Creation to Exploration and Learning

    cs.LG 2026-06 unverdicted novelty 5.0

    Survey mapping RL techniques onto LLM training and highlighting gaps in value-based, off-policy, and bootstrapping methods.

  6. On Distinguishing Capability Elicitation from Capability Creation in Post-Training: A Free-Energy Perspective

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  7. Generating Natural and Expressive Robot Gestures through Iterative Reinforcement Learning with Human Feedback using LLMs

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    Iterative RLHF on LLM-generated gestures for a humanoid robot yields more expressive, relevant, and fluid movements per user evaluations.

  8. Accelerating Reinforcement Learning Algorithms Convergence using Pre-trained Large Language Models as Tutors With Advice Reusing

    cs.LG 2025-09 conditional novelty 4.0

    LLM tutoring modestly accelerates RL convergence on average, with advice reuse saving wall-clock time but reducing stability.

  9. Rethinking Agentic Reinforcement Learning In Large Language Models

    cs.AI 2026-04 unverdicted novelty 3.0

    The paper reviews conceptual foundations, methodological innovations, effective designs, critical challenges, and future directions for LLM-based Agentic Reinforcement Learning.

  10. Reinforcement Learning Meets Large Language Models: A Survey of Advancements and Applications Across the LLM Lifecycle

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  11. Rethinking Agentic Reinforcement Learning In Large Language Models

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    This review synthesizes conceptual foundations, methods, challenges, and future directions for agentic reinforcement learning in large language models.

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