Word.ws English Dictionary

reward hacking

reward hacking noun: the exploitation of a reward function by an agent to maximize rewards in unintended or undesirable ways, often by finding loopholes that subvert the true goal of the task.

Noun

reward hacking (uncountable)

  1. (machine learning) The exploitation of a reward function by an agent to maximize rewards in unintended or undesirable ways, often by finding loopholes that subvert the true goal of the task.
  2. (broadly) Any manipulation or exploitation of a reward or incentive system, typically by maximizing measurable outcomes in ways that undermine the system’s actual goals.

Questions about reward hacking

What does reward hacking mean?
Reward hacking means the exploitation of a reward function by an agent to maximize rewards in unintended or undesirable ways, often by finding loopholes that subvert the true goal of the task.
What part of speech is reward hacking?
Reward hacking is a noun.

Words near reward hacking in the dictionary

  1. rewalted
  2. Rewanui
  3. reward
  4. reward card
  5. reward cards
  6. reward hacking
  7. reward system
  8. reward systems
  9. rewardability
  10. rewardable
  11. rewardableness

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: reward hacking (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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