Why Reinforcement learning from Human Feedback (RHLF) is important for Big Organizations?

3 min readDec 14, 2023

It’s a way of teaching a LLM (Large Language Model) to perform tasks or answer questions more effectively by using feedback from humans.

Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback (RHLF) is method in which the Already trained LLM model is fine tuned to optimize and achieve the specific objective based on the feedback provided by the human. Ex: If the LLM model is generating biased text for black people, the RHLF can be used to fine tune the model based on human feedback to reduce the biasness.

In general the Reinforcement Learning has below components:-

  1. Agent: This is the AI model or algorithm that is being trained. In the context of RLHF, the agent is not just interacting with a predefined environment but also receiving and incorporating feedback from human interactions.
  2. Action: These are the decisions or moves made by the agent. In a language model, for example, actions could be generating text, choosing a word, or deciding the next sentence in a conversation.
  3. Reward: The agent receives rewards based on its actions. In RLHF, these rewards are often determined based on human feedback. For example, if the agent produces a response that aligns well with human judgment or instruction, it receives a positive reward.
  4. Environment: This is the context or setting in which the agent operates. In RLHF, the environment can include the data it was initially trained on, the interface through which it interacts with humans, and the real-world context of its applications.
  5. State: This represents the current situation or status of the agent within its environment. In RLHF, a state could be the current point in a conversation for a chatbot or the current data input it’s analyzing.

Why RHLF is important for Big Organizations:

Large Language Models (LLM) comes with certain challenges:

  1. Biasness: LLMs can reflect and even amplify biases present in their training data. This could lead to unfair or discriminatory responses, which is a serious concern for businesses aiming for ethical AI practices.
  2. Verbose Responses: Sometimes, LLMs provide overly complex or lengthy responses, which may not be practical for users seeking quick and straightforward answers.
  3. Hallucination: LLMs can ‘hallucinate’ information, meaning they generate responses based on patterns they’ve learned, even if those responses are incorrect or nonsensical. This leads to reliability issues.

Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback (RLHF) addresses these issues:

  1. Reducing Bias: Through RLHF, human feedback can guide the model to avoid biased responses. By training the model with a diverse set of human inputs, it learns to generate more fair and balanced outputs.
  2. More Concise and Relevant Responses: Human feedback helps in training the model to be more concise and to the point. People can indicate when a response is too verbose, guiding the model to produce more focused and useful answers.
  3. Minimizing Hallucinations: RLHF allows for correction of incorrect responses. When humans identify hallucinations or false information, they provide corrective feedback. Over time, the model learns from these corrections and reduces the likelihood of making such errors.

For big organizations, employing RLHF means their AI systems become more reliable, unbiased, and user-friendly. This is crucial for maintaining customer trust, ensuring ethical AI use, and enhancing the overall effectiveness of AI solutions in large-scale applications.

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Shivam Agarwal
Shivam Agarwal

Written by Shivam Agarwal

Shivam is an accomplished analytics professional and algo trader, sharing expertise in algo trading, data science, and AI through insightful publications.

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