Matthew Li


2025

Large language models (LLMs) have shown remarkable capabilities across various tasks, yet their potential to reason about and construct scientific methodologies remains under explored. This work introduces a novel benchmark evaluating LLMs’ capacity to predict methodological details in AI research papers. We construct a dataset of 88 papers with redacted methodology sections and zero-shot prompt several state-of-the-art LLMs to generate methodology predictions. Our evaluation framework then employs a LLM-as-judge system with multiple LLM judges, majority voting, and self-omission techniques to minimize biases. We validate our LLM judge scores against human judgments. We then briefly analyze the judging results of our zero-shot prediction pipeline, suggesting that even state-of-the-art LLMs struggle with the task of methodology generation without more advanced techniques. This benchmark lays the groundwork for future research into evaluating LLMs’ potential for aiding in AI research.