Steerable Multi-Objective Group-Relative Preference Optimization with Jointly Trained Low-Rank Adapters
Abstract
Language model deployment often requires different trade-offs between competing objectives as user preferences change, yet standard post-training methods typically produce a single policy for a fixed objective weighting. We introduce LambdaMix, a new parameter efficient method for learning a preference conditioned family of policies with group-relative online reinforcement learning. LambdaMix jointly trains one low-rank adapter per objective over a frozen base model. One preference vector selects the adapter mixture that generates responses and weights the separately normalized rewards used to update the adapters. A single training run supports changing preferences at inference without further optimization. We experiment with four models on helpfulness and harmlessness and on solving math problems while following instructions. We also evaluate the two largest models on rewriting comments to preserve wording while reducing clues about personal attributes. On the first two tasks, LambdaMix achieves higher hypervolume than all evaluated conditioned and policy merging baselines across all four models. LambdaMix uses fewer training completions and stores fewer adapter parameters than a set of GRPO specialist policies. With architecture and initialization fixed, varying adapter mixtures and objective weights together gives wider score ranges and higher coverage than varying either alone.
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๐ค Post-training usually gives you one policy for one fixed weighting of objectives, but different users and settings call for different trade-offs.
๐๏ธ We introduce LambdaMix, a parameter-efficient method that learns a whole family of preference-conditioned policies with group-relative online RL.
๐งฉ LambdaMix trains one low-rank adapter per objective together on a frozen base model. A single preference vector does two things: it picks the adapter mixture that generates responses, and it weights the separately normalized rewards used to update the adapters.
๐ After one training run, you can change preferences at inference with no further optimization.
We test LambdaMix across four base LLMs:
- ๐ก๏ธ on helpfulness vs. harmlessness
- ๐งฎ on math with instruction following
- ๐ต๏ธ on rewriting comments while removing clues about personal attributes
๐ LambdaMix achieves higher hypervolume than all evaluated conditioned and policy-merging baselines.
โก It also uses fewer training completions and less adapter storage than a set of GRPO specialists.
๐ป Code: https://github.com/ckarouzos/lambdamix
One preference vector choosing a mix of adapters at inference is a neat way to avoid retraining for every trade-off. Does the mix behave smoothly when you move between two objectives, or are there sudden jumps in between?
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