Debate on sourcing SFT trajectories: prompt hints then remove, or use open models

fleetwood___ · x · 2026-09-25

A technical debate on where SFT training trajectories come from. xeophon argues you can avoid buying trajectories from labellers by giving the model hints in the initial prompt to nudge it through the task, then removing the hints for SFT — and notes many open models can be used for this. fleetwood pushes back that this bottoms out somewhere: some model still has to actually perform the task, or you must buy trajectories from a labeller.

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