Juniors' AI gains vanish with zero durable improvement, NBER RCT finds
ziv_ravid · x · 2026-09-22
The author cites a new NBER RCT (Autor et al., 133 patent lawyers): juniors' output jumped with AI, but when the tool was taken away, their gains vanished with zero durable improvement. Even juniors who keep their jobs may be losing on the skills front.
Together with the Stanford employment data in adjacent posts, this supports the thread's thesis that AI squeezes junior workers from two directions — their jobs and their skills.
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