{ "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register", "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/agricultural-sciences-teachers-postsecondary/", "methodology": "https://cookedindex.com/methodology", "notice": "Verdicts are re-examined as evidence accumulates. Re-fetch before relying on this; the page above always carries the current score.", "scored_at": "2026-08-11", "model": "claude-opus-5", "occupation": { "title": "Agricultural Sciences Teachers, Postsecondary", "soc_code": "25-1041", "category": "Education", "us_employment": 8920, "median_annual_wage": 98700 }, "verdict": "EXPOSED", "risk_resistance": 56, "contested": false, "near_boundary": false, "dimensions": { "task_resistance": 12, "embodiment": 12, "liability_shield": 4, "trust_premium": 15, "judgment_accountability": 13 }, "reasoning": { "task_resistance": "Roughly half the week — writing lecture slides on ruminant nutrition, generating exam banks, summarizing agronomy literature, drafting USDA/NIFA proposal boilerplate — is now first-draftable by a model, which is why this sits at 12 rather than 16; what holds the line is calibrating a soil-testing lab, diagnosing a sick calf in front of 20 students, and reading a graduate student's failing plot trial in person.", "embodiment": "At 12 rather than 4, this reflects real time in teaching greenhouses, livestock handling facilities, ag mechanics shops and rain-dependent research plots where you demonstrate AI breeding, tissue sampling or tractor PTO safety; it stays below 13 because the classroom, office hours and manuscript writing still consume most contact hours and the field work is on a departmental farm you control, not an uncontrolled site.", "liability_shield": "No state license, no board exam, and no personal signature standing behind your instruction — a 4 rather than 0 only because pesticide applicator certification, animal-care IACUC protocols and USDA lab compliance training create paperwork you must personally hold, none of which restricts who may teach the course.", "trust_premium": "At 15, the score reflects that your letter of recommendation is what places students with seed companies, extension offices and vet schools, that producers and county agents call you by name for a diagnosis, and that graduate advising is a multi-year personal relationship; it is not 18-20 because large intro sections and service courses are taught to students who will never learn your first name.", "judgment_accountability": "A 13 covers deciding whether a thesis is defensible, whether a herd-health or pesticide demonstration is safe to run with undergraduates present, and how to grade contested capstone work — consequential calls you own, but bounded by curriculum committees, IACUC review, tenure-and-promotion criteria and accreditation standards that pre-decide much of the frame." }, "rationale": "Lecture prep, syllabus writing, quiz generation, literature reviews and first drafts of grant proposals and journal manuscripts are already within reach of current AI, and that is a real share of the week. What doesn't move: running teaching farms, greenhouses, soils and animal-science labs, supervising field trials and graduate research, and mentoring students who will be hired on your recommendation. No license gates the job, but accreditation, tenure structures and the land-grant extension mission slow displacement more than the task mix alone would suggest.", "outlook": "Enrollment-driven and mostly stable through the 2030s, but expect fewer lecture-only lines, more AI-assisted course delivery, and hiring concentrated on faculty who run labs, field stations, and extension programs.", "what_would_raise_it": { "levers": [ { "dimension": "embodiment", "change": "If accreditation and program-review standards make supervised hands-on contact hours a hard requirement — e.g. state teacher-licensure rules for agricultural education (many states require documented Supervised Agricultural Experience/lab hours for ag-ed certification) or USDA/NIFA capacity-grant conditions tied to functioning teaching farms, greenhouses and animal units — the share of the week that must physically happen on-site rises and cannot be delivered by a model.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 3 }, { "dimension": "task_resistance", "change": "Task-mix shift: this job genuinely has two tiers. If syllabus/lecture/quiz/lit-review production is largely automated, what remains is field-trial design, IACUC and pesticide-safety protocol supervision, graduate committee work, and extension diagnosis of real producer problems — the judgment tier. Watch for institutions formally reallocating load away from content production toward lab/field supervision in workload policies.", "plausibility": "already happening", "would_add": 3 }, { "dimension": "judgment_accountability", "change": "If institutional policy names a faculty member of record as personally accountable for AI-assisted grading and academic-integrity determinations — as several university senates (e.g. Big Ten and California systems) have moved toward requiring a human instructor to render final grade and misconduct decisions — the role owns consequential, appealable calls rather than reviewing outputs.", "plausibility": "already happening", "would_add": 3 }, { "dimension": "liability_shield", "change": "Narrow route only: research and extension roles that require named certified supervisors — IACUC animal-use protocol PI, restricted-use pesticide applicator license for teaching-farm operations, biosafety committee sign-off. If universities and insurers require a licensed/named individual (not a department) to certify these, the shield rises modestly. It will never resemble medicine or engineering.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 3 }, { "dimension": "trust_premium", "change": "If accrediting bodies or state ag-ed certification require that recommendation letters and competency attestations for licensure/employment come from a named human faculty supervisor with documented direct observation, employers keep paying specifically for the human's vouching.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 2 } ], "ceiling_note": "Realistic ceiling is upper-60s/low-70s. There is no license gating the teaching itself, and the biggest downside pressure — enrollment decline and adjunctification in small ag programs — is an economic threat that no dimension here captures; a program can be cut regardless of how AI-resistant the work is." }, "adjudication": null, "employment_history": { "points": [ { "y": 2017, "emp": 10800, "wage": 86140 }, { "y": 2018, "emp": 10810, "wage": 84640 }, { "y": 2019, "emp": 9470, "wage": 83260 }, { "y": 2020, "emp": 8520, "wage": 90340 }, { "y": 2021, "emp": 8570, "wage": 95910 }, { "y": 2022, "emp": 8240, "wage": 85860 }, { "y": 2023, "emp": 7550, "wage": 85260 }, { "y": 2024, "emp": 8700, "wage": 86350 }, { "y": 2025, "emp": 8920, "wage": 98700 } ], "from": 2017, "to": 2025, "change_pct": -17.4, "comparable_from": 2019, "spans_soc_revision": true }, "pivots": [ { "slug": "chief-executives", "title": "Chief Executives", "verdict": "SAFE", "risk_resistance": 69, "median_wage": 213990, "overlap": 59, "skills_to_close": [ "Management of Financial Resources", "Operations Analysis", "Management of Material Resources", "Persuasion" ] } ], "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms" }