Uncovering Cross-Objective Interference in Multi-Objective Alignment
We study a persistent failure mode in multi-objective alignment for large language models (LLMs): training improves performance on only a subset of objectives while causing others to degrade. We formalize this phenomenon as cross-objective interference and conduct the first systematic study across classic scalarization algorithms, showing that interference is pervasive and exhibits strong model dependence.
  To explain this phenomenon, we derive a local covariance law showing that an objective improves at first order when its reward exhibits positive covariance with the scalarized score. We extend this analysis to clipped surrogate objectives used in modern alignment, demonstrating that the covariance law remains valid under mild conditions despite clipping. Building on this analysis, we propose Covariance Targeted Weight Adaptation (CTWA), a plug-and-play method that maintains positive covariance between objective rewards and the training signal to effectively mitigate cross-objective interference. Finally, we complement these local improvement conditions with a global convergence analysis under the Polyak--Łojasiewicz condition, establishing when non-convex scalarized optimization achieves global convergence and how cross-objective interference depends on specific model geometric properties.
698a27971b2dc6b37d61ae0c
Yining Lu
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2026-02-09T21:07:08.436Z
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Yining Lu
ylu610
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ylu610
698a27971b2dc6b37d61ae0d
Meng Jiang
Uncovering Cross-Objective Interference in Multi-Objective Alignment
We study a persistent failure mode in multi-objective alignment for large language models (LLMs): training improves performance on only a subset of objectives while causing others to degrade. We formalize this phenomenon as cross-objective interference and conduct the first systematic study across classic scalarization algorithms, showing that interference is pervasive and exhibits strong model dependence.
  To explain this phenomenon, we derive a local covariance law showing that an objective improves at first order when its reward exhibits positive covariance with the scalarized score. We extend this analysis to clipped surrogate objectives used in modern alignment, demonstrating that the covariance law remains valid under mild conditions despite clipping. Building on this analysis, we propose Covariance Targeted Weight Adaptation (CTWA), a plug-and-play method that maintains positive covariance between objective rewards and the training signal to effectively mitigate cross-objective interference. Finally, we complement these local improvement conditions with a global convergence analysis under the Polyak--Łojasiewicz condition, establishing when non-convex scalarized optimization achieves global convergence and how cross-objective interference depends on specific model geometric properties.
Multi-objective alignment in LLMs suffers from cross-objective interference where improving performance on some objectives degrades others, with a covariance-based analysis and a proposed method to maintain positive correlations between rewards and training signals.
multi-objective alignment large language models cross-objective interference scalarization algorithms local covariance law clipped surrogate objectives covariance targeted weight adaptation Polyak--Łojasiewicz condition non-convex optimization global convergence