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Instruction Quality Matters: Refining Instructions for Effective Preference Learning

arXiv · AI, language, vision and robotics · article · Aug 27, 2026 · UTC

Preference learning optimizes models using response pairs, yet the informativeness of these pairs is fundamentally shaped by the instructions from which they are generated. We identify instruction quality as a hidden bottleneck in preference learning: low-quality or ambiguous instructions restrict the response-quality distribution, limiting strong chosen responses and weakening preference signals. Through Best- and Worst-of-N analyses, we show that instruction quality constrains both the ceiling and floor of sampled response quality. Motivated by this observation, we introduce an instruction-r

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First collected: 2026-09-21T08:51:59.673Z. This is not the publication date.