MIT economist's patent-lawyer study finds AI lifts junior drafting work but not their unaided skill

David Autor, the MIT economist known for the "China shock" research, reports that AI helped patent lawyers draft better work but did not build the independent skills of junior lawyers. In a randomized study of 133 lawyers at 11 U.S. intellectual-property firms, access to a custom AI drafting tool improved drafting scores. When the tool was removed for a final test of marking up a flawed patent, senior lawyers with AI access beat their control-group peers on average, while junior lawyers showed no average gain. Autor calls AI a "performance equalizer, but a skill-disequalizer." The study is an unreviewed working paper. Its six co-authors are Google employees, and Google paid the study's direct costs. The sample was small and the trial lasted three months. The study does not examine Gen Z as a group. It is worth reading because it tests the assumption that AI will automatically lift early-career workers.