arXiv AI By Zichao Yu, Chengzhi Yu, Shengze Xu, Yujin Han, Bingqing Jiang, Xu Wang, Difan Zou

Mismatch Matters: On-Policy Distillation Beyond Token Agreement

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arXiv:2608. 09836v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: On-policy distillation (OPD) has emerged as a core component of modern LLM post-training pipelines, yet we reveal a failure mode: degenerate agreement, where students exploit repetitive loops to achieve near-perfect token agreement with the teacher despite globally flawed responses.

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