Q001 — Self-Audit¶


Research	R0040 — RLHF Alternatives
Run	2026-03-28
Query	Q001

ROBIS 4-Domain Audit¶

Domain 1: Eligibility Criteria¶

Rating: Pass

Criterion	Assessment
Criteria defined before searching	Yes — sought peer-reviewed papers and production deployment evidence for RLHF alternatives
Criteria consistently applied	Yes — all sources evaluated against same reliability/relevance framework
No post-hoc criteria shifts	Correct — no criteria were changed after seeing results

Notes: Eligibility criteria were straightforward for this query: methods proposed as RLHF alternatives with empirical validation or production deployment.

Domain 2: Search Comprehensiveness¶

Rating: Pass

Criterion	Assessment
Multiple search strategies used	Yes — 3 distinct searches covering overview, specific methods (DPO/CAI), and newer alternatives (GRPO/KTO/ORPO/RLVR)
Searches designed to test each hypothesis	Yes — searches included terms for "dominant" and "replacement" to test H2 and H3
All results dispositioned	Yes — 60 results across 3 searches, all dispositioned (13 selected, 47 rejected)
Source diversity achieved	Yes — sources from Stanford, Anthropic, DeepSeek, KAIST, Contextual AI, and independent reference texts

Notes: 7 searches executed in total (including sub-queries within S03). Coverage spans 2022-2026. The main gap is limited direct access to internal lab documentation — adoption claims rely on public statements.

Domain 3: Evaluation Consistency¶

Rating: Pass

Criterion	Assessment
All sources scored using same framework	Yes — identical scorecard dimensions for all 7 sources
Evidence typed consistently	Yes — Factual, Reported, and Analytical types applied consistently
ACH matrix applied	Yes — all 7 evidence extracts evaluated against all 3 hypotheses
Diagnosticity analysis performed	Yes — most and least diagnostic evidence identified with rationale

Notes: Scoring was consistent. The main risk was over-weighting primary papers (which naturally have more detailed findings) vs. synthesis sources.

Domain 4: Synthesis Fairness¶

Rating: Pass

Criterion	Assessment
All hypotheses given fair hearing	Yes — H3 was particularly important and received careful analysis through the HALO framework
Contradictory evidence surfaced	Yes — noted that human feedback remains a "competitive moat" (weakening pure-replacement reading)
Confidence calibrated to evidence	Yes — High confidence is warranted given peer-reviewed primary sources and production deployment
Gaps acknowledged	Yes — four specific gaps documented including missing head-to-head benchmarks

Notes: The primary synthesis challenge was distinguishing between H1 and H3, which are not mutually exclusive. The final answer acknowledges both.

Overall Assessment¶

Overall risk of bias: Low risk

The query had a clear, objective answer space (what alternatives exist). The evidence was unambiguous about the existence and viability of alternatives. The main analytical judgment — whether alternatives represent evolution or revolution — was treated as a spectrum rather than forced into a binary, which is appropriate given the evidence.

Researcher Bias Check¶

No researcher profile provided: Without a declared bias profile, the primary risk is the agent's potential anchoring on well-published methods. This was mitigated by explicitly searching for newer/less-covered methods (KTO, ORPO, RLVR).
Availability bias: The agent may overrepresent methods with more published literature (DPO, CAI) relative to emerging methods. The inclusion of GRPO, KTO, and ORPO addresses this.
Framing bias: The query asks about "alternatives," which could bias toward finding them. The inclusion of H2 (no alternatives) and H3 (modifications not replacements) provides a check.