secretly

Definition

A rhetorical device in titles, following the pattern "Your X is Secretly a Y": the claim that a component you thought had to be built separately is already implicit in what you have. The canonical instance is the DPO paper's "Your Language Model Is Secretly a Reward Model". It promises a reinterpretation, and usually a simplification, rather than a new architecture.

Explainers using this term

• DPO and What Came After — The Lineage That Simplified RLHFDirect Preference Optimization: Your Language Model is Secretly a Reward Model