arXiv · 2510.13418
Reinforcement Learning Meets Masked Generative Models: Mask-GRPO for Text-to-Image Generation
Abstract
Reinforcement learning (RL) has garnered increasing attention in text-to-image (T2I) generation. However, most existing RL approaches are tailored to either diffusion models or autoregressive models, overlooking an important alternative: masked generative models. In this work, we propose Mask-GRPO, the first method to incorporate Group Relative Policy Optimization (GRPO)-based RL into this overlooked paradigm. Our core insight is to redefine the transition probability, which is different from current approaches, and formulate the unmasking process as a multi-step decision-making problem. To further enhance our method, we explore several useful strategies, including removing the KL constraint, applying the reduction strategy, and filtering out low-quality samples. Using Mask-GRPO, we improve a base model, Show-o, with substantial improvements on standard T2I benchmarks and preference alignment, outperforming existing state-of-the-art approaches. The code is available on https://github.com/xingzhejun/Mask-GRPO
Explore related subjects
Keep this discovery
Explore connections, maps & timelines
Yifu Luo, Xinhao Hu, Keyu Fan, Haoyuan Sun, Zeyu Chen, Bo Xia, Tiantian Zhang, Yongzhe Chang, Xueqian Wang. 2025-10-15. Reinforcement Learning Meets Masked Generative Models: Mask-GRPO for Text-to-Image Generation. https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.13418
Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.