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Abstract - Position: The Complexity of Perfect AI Alignment -- Formalizing the RLHF Trilemma
Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback (RLHF) is widely used for aligning large language models, yet practitioners face a persistent puzzle: improving safety often reduces fairness, scaling to diverse populations becomes computationally intractable, and making systems robust often amplifies majority biases. We formalize this tension as the Alignment Trilemma: no RLHF system can simultaneously achieve (i) epsilon-representativeness across diverse human values, (ii) polynomial tractability in sample and compute complexity, and (iii) delta-robustness against adversarial perturbations and distribution shift. Through a complexity-theoretic analysis integrating statistical learning theory and robust optimization, we prove that achieving both representativeness (epsilon <= 0.01) and robustness (delta <= 0.001) for global-scale populations requires Omega(2^{d_context}) operations, which is super-polynomial in the context dimensionality. We show that current RLHF implementations resolve this trilemma by sacrificing representativeness: they collect only 10^3--10^4 samples from homogeneous annotator pools while 10^7--10^8 samples are needed for true global representation. Our framework provides a unified explanation for documented RLHF pathologies including preference collapse, sycophancy, and systematic bias amplification. We conclude with concrete directions for navigating these fundamental trade-offs through strategic relaxations of alignment requirements.
对齐三难困境:RLHF系统的根本限制 /
Position: The Complexity of Perfect AI Alignment -- Formalizing the RLHF Trilemma
1️⃣ 一句话总结
本文形式化提出了'对齐三难困境',指出任何基于人类反馈的强化学习系统都无法同时实现三个理想目标:全面代表多样化人类价值观、计算可处理性以及抗干扰鲁棒性。
2️⃣ 论文创新点
1. 对齐三难困境形式化框架
- 创新点:将RLHF中的基本权衡形式化为三个相互冲突的目标:ε-代表性(捕捉多样化人类价值观)、多项式可处理性(计算效率)和δ-鲁棒性(抗干扰能力)
- 区别/改进:提供了严格的数学框架来分析RLHF系统的根本限制,解释了现有方法的内在局限性
- 意义:为理解对齐失败现象(如偏好崩溃、奉承行为和系统性偏见放大)提供了计算必要性解释
2. RLHF三阶段流程形式化
- 创新点:系统地将RLHF流程形式化为三个阶段:监督微调、奖励建模和策略优化,并给出了数学表达式
- 区别/改进:提供了清晰、可计算的定义,突出了关键设计选择及其对代表性的影响
- 意义:为后续分析RLHF在代表性、可处理性和鲁棒性之间的权衡奠定了精确基础
3. MaxMin-RLHF方法
- 创新点:显式建模用户群体混合并优化最差群体表现的RLHF变体
- 区别/改进:解决了单一标量奖励模型无法捕捉多样化偏好的问题
- 意义:提高模型对多样化用户群体的代表性
4. 模块化价值架构
- 创新点:将对齐问题分解为可独立验证的子问题
- 区别/改进:通过区域文化模块和通用安全模块的组合提高可验证性
- 意义:降低计算复杂度,提高系统可靠性和透明度
3️⃣ 主要结果与价值
结果亮点
- 通过复杂性理论分析证明,实现全球规模人群的代表性和鲁棒性需要超多项式计算量
- 当前RLHF实现通过牺牲代表性来解决这一困境,优先考虑可处理性和部分鲁棒性
- WEIRD标注偏差分析揭示了系统性偏见根源,解释了为何当前对齐方法难以捕捉多样化人类价值观
实际价值
- 为AI对齐实践提供了理论指导框架,帮助开发者明确在三个维度间的权衡决策
- 解释了大型语言模型全球部署中观察到的公平性、偏见和安全性问题的根本原因
- 推动社区朝着原则性目标发展,促进机器学习实践与伦理问题的结合
4️⃣ 术语表
- Alignment Trilemma:对齐三难困境,指RLHF系统无法同时实现三个理想目标:ε-代表性(全面捕捉人类价值观多样性)、多项式可处理性(计算效率)和δ-鲁棒性(抗干扰能力)
- ε-representativeness:ε-代表性,衡量系统捕捉多样化人类价值观的能力,确保模型输出能代表广泛人群的偏好
- δ-Robustness:δ-鲁棒性,策略在对抗扰动空间中保持可接受性能的概率要求,定义为P[E[V_h(π;a)] ≥ V_min] ≥ 1-δ
- RLHF:基于人类反馈的强化学习,通过三阶段流程(监督微调、奖励建模、策略优化)来对齐语言模型的方法,使用人类偏好数据训练奖励模型并优化策略
- WEIRD:西方、受教育、工业化、富裕和民主人群,当前RLHF标注主要来自这一群体,导致系统性偏见