The economist behind the ‘China shock’ says AI is a paradoxical ‘skill-disequalizer’ for Gen Z workers

Gen Z was promised that artificial intelligence would be the great equalizer, a tool enabling young professionals to produce work at the level of experienced experts. However, recent research suggests that AI might actually create a paradoxical "skill-disequalizer" effect for Gen Z workers. In a three-month experiment involving patent lawyers, AI improved the quality of drafts across the board.

Yet, when researchers removed the tool and tested independent judgment, only the more experienced lawyers showed an average improvement. Junior lawyers did not benefit.

David Autor, the economist behind the "China shock" concept, explains that while AI is an automatic performance equalizer, it is a skill-disequalizer. Only practitioners with foundational mental models can leverage AI to enhance their underlying skill sets. The study focused on lawyers by experience, not age, but early-career workers are directly affected.

Autor, head of MIT's economics department and a Google Technology and Society Visiting Fellow, warns that AI could eliminate some specialized careers while simultaneously creating new ones. This could leave workers who lose old careers unable to take advantage of emerging roles.

The patent-law experiment enrolled 133 lawyers at 11 U.S. intellectual-property law firms, randomly assigning 67 to receive access to a custom AI patent-drafting assistant. After 90 days, AI access raised drafting scores by 0.38 standard deviations, equivalent to an 11-percentile-point gain relative to control scores. However, when tested without AI, senior lawyers showed a 0.45 standard deviation advantage over their control-group peers, while junior lawyers showed no average gain.

The study suggests that AI may help some junior lawyers initially, but it also creates a cushion for them, leaving them less prepared for higher-level tasks.