In plain words: Instead of simply guessing the next word, the model is trained by trial and reward, earning points for predicting the next word correctly so plain text becomes its own answer key. This beat standard next-word training at that task, and accuracy kept climbing as more computing power was used.
Abstract
In this work, we introduce Reinforcement Pre-Training (RPT) as a new scaling paradigm for large language models and reinforcement learning (RL). Specifically, we reframe next-token prediction as a reasoning task trained using RL, where it receives verifiable rewards for correctly predicting the next token for a given context. RPT offers a scalable method to leverage vast amounts of text data for general-purpose RL, rather than relying on domain-specific annotated answers. By incentivizing the capability of next-token reasoning, RPT significantly improves the language modeling accuracy of predicting the next tokens. Moreover, RPT provides a strong pre-trained foundation for further reinforcement fine-tuning. The scaling curves show that increased training compute consistently improves the next-token prediction accuracy. The results position RPT as an effective and promising scaling paradigm to advance language model pre-training.
Qingxiu Dong, Li Dong, Yao Tang, Tianzhu Ye, Yutao Sun, Zhifang Sui, Furu Wei
arXiv:2506.08007 · cs.CL · submitted Jun 9, 2025
abstract · pdf · html
Let's assume this is a paradigm shift on the scale of Transformers / `Attention is all you need`. Companies build out new models and pump another $100 Billion through it. And then a year from now, another innovation comes out. Same circus. And again.
No one wants to be left behind but trying to keep up will sink smaller companies.