Prior expertise may determine whether AI builds skills or substitutes for them, field experiment suggests
Does using AI on the job build expertise or erode it? A field experiment with patent lawyers suggests the answer may depend on how much expertise people bring to the tool in the first place.
A recent experiment involving 133 U.S. patent lawyers suggests that the impact of AI writing assistants on professional work may depend on the individual's prior experience. While junior lawyers experienced an improvement in the quality of their patent drafts when using AI assistance, senior lawyers who had previously used the tool outperformed those without AI access when completing a similar task without assistance.
However, junior lawyers who had utilized AI did not show a significant advantage in subsequent tasks. This finding, published as a National Bureau of Economic Research working paper, raises questions about whether AI's benefits translate to independent expert judgment and whether reliance on AI hinders the development of essential skills.
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