Yoav Goldberg blasts COLM mood: RL loss tweaks aren't 'science again'

yoavgo · x · 2026-10-11

AI researcher Yoav Goldberg calls out a pervasive sentiment at COLM: "last year was boring, we only did prompt tweaking, now we're doing science again." He argues that this 'science' mostly amounts to meaningless tweaks to RL loss terms, and he sees no reason it's any better than prompt tweaking — a sharp critique of how the field rebrands tinkering as progress.

Related event: Yoav Goldberg Slams COLM Narrative: RL Loss Fine-Tuning Is Not Superior Science(2 posts)→

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