ResearchResearch paperReinforcement Learning · Image, Video & 3D Generation · Training & Scaling1 source · Oct 20, 2026

DualHeads: Reward-tilted few-step diffusion made simple

Distilled diffusion models generate high-quality images in a few sampling steps, but aligning them with task requirements and human preferences is difficult.

Key points

  • Methods developed for multi-step diffusion models rely on differentiable rewards, or on score fields and stochastic trajectories that distilled generators may lack.
  • We ask whether a few-step generator can be adapted using only external reward evaluations and reference samples, and show that two binary classifiers suffice.
  • Our method, DualHeads, implements them as lightweight heads on a frozen diffusion backbone.
  • Empirically, with both rule-based and model-based rewards, a few-step DualHeads generator reaches task rewards close to those of 40-step reinforcement learning methods while preserving image quality, at no extra inference cost.

Sources (1)

  • [1]DualHeads: Reward-tilted few-step diffusion made simple
    arXiv (AI, ML, NLP, CV, robotics, multi-agent) · Oct 20, 07:31 PM
    Distilled diffusion models generate high-quality images in a few sampling steps, but aligning them with task requirements and human preferences is difficult.
    Methods developed for multi-step diffusion models rely on differentiable rewards, or on score fields and stochastic trajectories that distilled generators may lack.

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