Can LLMs Replace Manual Annotation of Software Engineering Artifacts?
Tue 29 Apr 2025 11:10 - 11:20 at 214 - Software ecosystems and humans Chair(s): Ahmad Abdellatif
Experimental evaluations of software engineering innovations, e.g., tools and processes, often include human-subject studies as a component of multi-pronged strategy to obtain greater generalizability of the findings. However, human-subject studies in our field are challenging, due to the cost and difficulty of finding and employing suitable subjects, ideally, professional programmers with varying degrees of experience. Meanwhile, large language models (LLMs) have recently started to demonstrate human-level performance in several areas. This paper explores the possibility of substituting costly human subjects with much cheaper LLM queries in evaluations of code- and code-related artifacts. We study this idea by applying six state-of-the-art LLMs to ten annotation tasks from five datasets created by prior work, such as judging the accuracy of a natural language summary of a method or deciding whether a code change fixes a static analysis warning. Our results show that replacing some human annotation effort with LLMs can produce inter-rater agreements equal or close to human-rater agreement. To help decide when and how to use LLMs in human-subject studies, we propose model-model agreement as a predictor of whether a given task as suitable for LLMs at all, and model confidence as a means to select specific samples where LLMs can safely replace human annotators. Overall, our work is the first step toward mixed human-LLM evaluations in software engineering.
Mon 28 AprDisplayed time zone: Eastern Time (US & Canada) change
13:00 - 13:30 | |||
13:00 30mTalk | Chasing the Clock: How Fast Are Vulnerabilities Fixed in the Maven Ecosystem? Mining Challenge Md Fazle Rabbi Idaho State University, Arifa Islam Champa Idaho State University, Rajshakhar Paul Wayne State University, Minhaz F. Zibran Idaho State University Pre-print | ||
13:00 30mTalk | MaLAware: Automating the Comprehension of Malicious Software Behaviours using Large Language Models (LLMs) Data and Tool Showcase Track BIKASH SAHA Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, Nanda Rani Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, Sandeep K. Shukla Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur Pre-print | ||
13:00 30mTalk | A Dataset of Contributor Activities in the NumFocus Open-Source Community Data and Tool Showcase Track Youness Hourri University of Mons, Alexandre Decan University of Mons; F.R.S.-FNRS, Tom Mens University of Mons Pre-print | ||
13:00 30mTalk | Popularity and Innovation in Maven Central Mining Challenge Nkiru Ede Victoria University of Wellington, Jens Dietrich Victoria University of Wellington, Ulrich Zülicke Victoria University of Wellington Pre-print | ||
13:00 30mTalk | TerraDS: A Dataset for Terraform HCL Programs Data and Tool Showcase Track Christoph Buehler University of St. Gallen, David Spielmann University of St. Gallen, Roland Meier armasuisse, Guido Salvaneschi University of St. Gallen Pre-print | ||
13:00 30mTalk | SPRINT: An Assistant for Issue Report Management Data and Tool Showcase Track Pre-print | ||
13:00 30mTalk | Does Functional Package Management Enable Reproducible Builds at Scale? Yes. Technical Papers Julien Malka LTCI, Télécom Paris, Institut Polytechnique de Paris, France, Stefano Zacchiroli Télécom Paris, Polytechnic Institute of Paris, Théo Zimmermann Télécom Paris, Polytechnic Institute of Paris Pre-print | ||
13:00 30mTalk | Dependency Update Adoption Patterns in the Maven Software Ecosystem Mining Challenge Baltasar Berretta College of Wooster, Augustus Thomas College of Wooster, Heather Guarnera The College of Wooster | ||
13:00 30mTalk | A Dataset of Software Bill of Materials for Evaluating SBOM Consumption Tools Data and Tool Showcase Track Rio Kishimoto Osaka University, Tetsuya Kanda Notre Dame Seishin University, Yuki Manabe The University of Fukuchiyama, Katsuro Inoue Nanzan University, Shi Qiu Toshiba, Yoshiki Higo Osaka University Pre-print | ||
13:00 30mTalk | Investigating the Understandability of Review Comments on Code Change Requests Technical Papers Md Shamimur Rahman University of Saskatchewan, Canada, Zadia Codabux University of Saskatchewan, Chanchal K. Roy University of Saskatchewan, Canada | ||
13:00 30mTalk | Refactoring for Dockerfile Quality: A Dive into Developer Practices and Automation Potential Technical Papers Emna Ksontini University of Michigan - Dearborn, Meriem Mastouri University of Michigan, Rania Khalsi University of Michigan - Flint, Wael Kessentini DePaul University | ||
13:00 30mTalk | Combining Large Language Models with Static Analyzers for Code Review Generation Technical Papers Imen Jaoua DIRO, Université de Montréal, Oussama Ben Sghaier DIRO, Université de Montréal, Houari Sahraoui DIRO, Université de Montréal Pre-print | ||
13:00 30mTalk | Cascading Effects: Analyzing Project Failure Impact in the Maven Central Ecosystem Mining Challenge Mina Shehata Belmont University, Saidmakhmud Makhkamjonoov Belmont University, Mahad Syed Belmont University, Esteban Parra Belmont University | ||
13:00 30mTalk | Can LLMs Replace Manual Annotation of Software Engineering Artifacts? Technical Papers Toufique Ahmed IBM Research, Prem Devanbu University of California at Davis, Christoph Treude Singapore Management University, Michael Pradel University of Stuttgart Pre-print | ||
13:00 30mTalk | Do LLMs Provide Links to Code Similar to what they Generate? A Study with Gemini and Bing CoPilot Technical Papers Daniele Bifolco University of Sannio, Pietro Cassieri University of Salerno, Giuseppe Scanniello University of Salerno, Massimiliano Di Penta University of Sannio, Italy, Fiorella Zampetti University of Sannio, Italy Pre-print | ||
13:00 30mTalk | Mining a Decade of Contributor Dynamics in Ethereum: A Longitudinal Study Technical Papers Matteo Vaccargiu University of Cagliari, Sabrina Aufiero University College London (UCL), Cheick Ba Queen Mary University of London, Silvia Bartolucci University College London, Richard Clegg Queen Mary University London, Daniel Graziotin University of Hohenheim, Rumyana Neykova Brunel University London, Roberto Tonelli University of Cagliari, Giuseppe Destefanis Brunel University London Pre-print | ||
13:00 30mTalk | SCRUBD: Smart Contracts Reentrancy and Unhandled Exceptions Vulnerability Dataset Data and Tool Showcase Track Chavhan Sujeet Yashavant Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, Mitrajsinh Chavda Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, India, Saurabh Kumar Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad, India, Amey Karkare IIT Kanpur, Angshuman Karmakar Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, India Pre-print | ||
13:00 30mTalk | Out of Sight, Still at Risk: The Lifecycle of Transitive Vulnerabilities in Maven Mining Challenge Piotr Przymus Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, Poland, Mikołaj Fejzer Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, Jakub Narębski Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, Krzysztof Rykaczewski Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, Poland, Krzysztof Stencel University of Warsaw Pre-print | ||
13:00 30mTalk | HaPy-Bug - Human Annotated Python Bug Resolution Dataset Data and Tool Showcase Track Piotr Przymus Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, Poland, Mikołaj Fejzer Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, Jakub Narębski Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, Radosław Woźniak Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, Łukasz Halada University of Wrocław, Poland, Aleksander Kazecki Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, Mykhailo Molchanov Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute, Ukraine, Krzysztof Stencel University of Warsaw Pre-print |