Self-prompting and cross-model consensus enable reproducible data extraction from scientific literature with large language models

The paper evaluates browser-based large language models (LLMs) for extracting detailed, contextualized data from scientific papers. It presents four workflows: (1) expert-curated prompts yield good extraction but struggle with nuance; (2) LLMs can generate effective prompts from simple instructions; (3) autonomous literature discovery is challenging, with missing or hallucinated references; (4) LLMs can build new datasets from guidelines that align closely with human experts, yet still need human oversight. The study outlines a practical, auditable workflow where experts set standards, models cross-check extractions, and researchers resolve disputes, enabling scalable scientific data curation.