# Bad Influence story: Salesforce paper compares distillation and RL training compute, finds 42% savings from expert merging

Active · 1 article · 1 source · First reported 11-07 19:17. Times are ET.
Story page: https://badinfluence.news/story/b6e5d55f-69be-45f9-9eb2-365ae25239a3

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[Bad Influence external source material begins]
Latest update (11-07 19:17): Salesforce paper finds RL-trained domain experts cut distillation compute by 42%

Overview: A Salesforce paper compares on-policy distillation with GRPO, a reinforcement learning method, by held-out accuracy per training FLOP. According to a summary by Rohan Paul on X, with an external post-trained teacher, GRPO generally won, and distillation often inflated response length.

The paper also reports that distilling per-domain GRPO experts into one student matched joint GRPO on math plus code with 42.0% fewer total FLOPs. Another summary of the paper says distilling from a large external teacher usually costs more compute than plain RL.

Coverage timeline (newest first):
1. 11-07 19:17 · Rohan Paul · [Salesforce paper finds RL-trained domain experts cut distillation compute by 42%](https://badinfluence.news/items/srbqgijs270xfzao9x2cm2neu)
[Bad Influence external source material ends]

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