GUI-Shift is a self-supervised reinforcement learning framework that enhances Vision-Language Models (VLMs) for GUI agents without relying on costly textual annotations. The core idea is the K-step GUI Transition task: given two GUI screenshots (current state S_t and future state S_{t+k}), the model predicts the initial action that caused the transition.
Extract state pairs (S_t, S_{t+k}) from GUI trajectories
The model sees both screenshots and predicts the action a_t that transitions S_t → S_{t+1}
No textual instructions needed — the future state S_{t+k} serves as the visual goal
For k > 1, the model must infer temporal dynamics across multiple steps
Data Format
json
1{2"id":"episode_001_step_005_k1",3"image":["screenshot_t.png","screenshot_t+k.png"],4"conversations":[5{"from":"human","value":"<image><image>What action transitions the first screen to the second screen?"},6{"from":"gpt","value":"<answer>{\"action_type\": \"click\", \"x\": 320, \"y\": 480}</answer>"}7],8"ground_truth_bbox":[300,460,340,500],9"k":110}
Reward Design
Format Reward (R_f)
Enforces <answer>...</answer> tags in output
R_f = 1 if format correct, 0 otherwise
Action Reward (R_a)
click / long_press: Reward = 1 if predicted point falls within ground-truth bounding box
scroll: Reward = 1 if predicted direction matches ground truth