Introduction: LLMs as Tools for Software Engineering Researchers

LLMs can serve as tools to help researchers conduct empirical studies. They can automate various tasks such as data collection, pre-processing, and analysis. For example, LLMs can apply predefined coding guides to qualitative datasets (LLMs as Annotators), assess the quality of software artifacts (LLMs as Judges), generate summaries of research papers (LLMs for Synthesis), or simulate human behavior in empirical studies (LLMs as Subjects). If LLMs could complete these tasks well enough, they would reduce the time and effort required to conduct a study. However, these applications each pose challenges to validity and reproducibility.