🤖 AI strengthens skill, but only for experienced specialists
David Autor and co-authors published NBER Working Paper 35720: a pre-registered three-month RCT with 133 patent lawyers from 11 US firms. Some received a custom AI assistant for drafting applications, and the work was blindly evaluated by experts.
🌍 While lawyers used AI, quality increased by 0.34–0.38 SD, and the gain was greater for junior lawyers. But on a task without AI after three months, the win was entirely with senior lawyers (+0.45 SD): for junior lawyers it was zero, and the evaluations polarized.
👤 The authors' conclusion: basic expertise is the condition under which working with AI becomes a sustained skill, not its erosion.
Source 1: https://www.nber.org/papers/w35720 Source 2: https://shapingwork.mit.edu/research/does-ai-assistance-enhance-or-erode-expertise-evidence-from-a-three-month-field-experiment-in-patent-drafting/