Research
Prior expertise may determine whether AI builds skills or substitutes for them, field experiment suggests
PsyPost · By Eric W. Dolan ·
The Brief
- A three-month field experiment with 133 U.S. patent lawyers tested an AI writing assistant for patent drafting.
- Access to the AI tool improved the quality of patent drafts, with the largest gains among junior lawyers.
- On a later task completed without AI, senior lawyers who had used the tool outperformed those who had not, per the source's summary.
Why it matters
The study suggests that prior expertise may decide whether AI tools build lasting skills or substitute for them, which matters for how organisations train and deploy AI assistants in knowledge work.
Who’s affected
- Patent lawyers and patent drafting teams
- Organisations deploying AI writing assistants for professional work
- #ai-assistants
- #patent-drafting
- #skill-development
- #field-experiment
- #professional-training
In a three-month experiment with 133 U.S. patent lawyers, access to an AI writing assistant improved the quality of their patent drafts, with the largest gains among junior lawyers. But on a later task completed without AI, senior lawyers who had been using the tool outperformed…
Timeline
PsyPost reports the field experiment findings
PsyPost – Psychology News
Prior expertise may determine whether AI builds skills or substitutes for them, field experiment suggests