{ "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register", "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/animal-scientists/", "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": "Animal Scientists", "soc_code": "19-1011", "category": "Science", "us_employment": 3100, "median_annual_wage": 68940 }, "verdict": "EXPOSED", "risk_resistance": 46, "contested": false, "near_boundary": false, "dimensions": { "task_resistance": 11, "embodiment": 12, "liability_shield": 3, "trust_premium": 8, "judgment_accountability": 12 }, "reasoning": { "task_resistance": "Ration balancing against NRC requirement tables, ANOVA/mixed-model runs on trial data, and drafting extension bulletins are already handled well by software plus an LLM, but designing a 90-day feeding trial with valid pen replication, walking the barn to spot a lame heifer skewing intake data, and collecting blood, semen, or rumen fluid still require a person on site — hence mid-band 11 rather than the 14+ of work that cannot be moved to a screen.", "embodiment": "You are in feedlots, farrowing houses, and research dairies with restraint chutes, AI guns, ultrasound wands, and manure underfoot, but the sample then goes to a controlled lab bench and much of the year is spent on analysis and writing — a split that lands at 12, above a screen-only analyst and below the veterinarian or herdsman whose whole day is hands on live animals.", "liability_shield": "There is no license to practice animal science: a PhD and ARPAS or ANSI board certification are resume assets, not statutory gates, and when a nutrition program goes to producers it is the feed company, the veterinarian of record, or the IACUC that carries the legal exposure — 3 reflects that IACUC protocol authorship is the only place your name binds anything.", "trust_premium": "Producers, feed-company clients, and breed associations do keep coming back to the specific scientist whose ration or sire-selection advice worked on their operation, but the deliverable is a peer-reviewed paper, a spec sheet, or a trial report that stands on its numbers regardless of who signed it, so 8 sits above anonymous output and well below the relationship-is-the-product tier.", "judgment_accountability": "Deciding that a genomic selection index or a transition-cow diet is ready to release to commercial herds — where a wrong call costs thousands of animals and a client's season — is a genuinely ambiguous high-stakes judgment, but much of it is bounded by NRC requirement tables, established statistical protocols, and IACUC review, which caps this at 12 rather than the 15+ of someone with no external checkpoint." }, "rationale": "A large slice of the job — literature reviews, ration formulation runs, statistical analysis of trial data, grant and journal writing, extension bulletins — is exactly the text-and-tabular work AI now does at usable quality. What holds is the physical half: designing and running feeding, breeding, and reproduction trials in barns and feedlots, collecting samples, handling animals, and owning the call on whether a genetics or nutrition program goes to producers. No license protects the title, so the moat is embodiment and accountability for real herds, not regulation.", "outlook": "The occupation stays small and stable, but the analysis-and-writing share of the workday collapses; the animal scientists still hired in 2035 will be the ones physically running trials and signing off on herd-level recommendations.", "what_would_raise_it": { "levers": [ { "dimension": "liability_shield", "change": "FDA CVM guidance or AAFCO model feed regulation requiring a named, credentialed animal nutritionist (e.g., ACAN/ARPAS-certified) to sign off on commercial ration formulations and feed additive claims — analogous to the PE stamp — with personal attestation that AI-generated formulations were reviewed; also USDA/IACUC rules naming a responsible animal scientist for AI-designed trial protocols", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 5 }, { "dimension": "liability_shield", "change": "State veterinary practice act amendments (several boards have contested nutrition/reproduction consulting scope) explicitly carving nutrition and embryo-transfer program design to licensed vets or registered animal scientists, creating a signature requirement where none exists", "plausibility": "unlikely", "would_add": 3 }, { "dimension": "task_resistance", "change": "Routine tier (lit review, stats runs, ration solver, extension copy) automates away, leaving trial design under confounded field conditions, gene-editing and genomic-selection program calls, and diagnosing why a herd trial failed — a genuine two-tier occupation where the residual is the judgment tier", "plausibility": "already happening", "would_add": 4 }, { "dimension": "embodiment", "change": "Growth of on-farm precision-livestock and gene-editing validation work requiring in-barn sample collection, surgical/reproductive procedures, and phenotyping that sensor rigs cannot yet substitute; unpredictable animal handling keeps this floor high", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 3 }, { "dimension": "judgment_accountability", "change": "Antibiotic-free, welfare-audit (GAP, FARM program) and gene-edited-animal approval regimes naming an individual scientist as accountable for herd-level program decisions and audit defense", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 3 }, { "dimension": "trust_premium", "change": "Breed associations and large integrators contracting named scientists for genetic-evaluation credibility, where producers pay for a person who will stand behind an EPD or sire recommendation", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 2 } ], "ceiling_note": "Tiny occupation (3,100) heavily embedded in land-grant universities and feed companies; if extension and ag-research budgets shrink, headcount falls regardless of dimension scores. No licensure protects the title today, so the liability lever is the only large one and it depends on a feed-regulation change that has no active bill." }, "adjudication": null, "employment_history": { "points": [ { "y": 2017, "emp": 2550, "wage": 60760 }, { "y": 2018, "emp": 2530, "wage": 58380 }, { "y": 2019, "emp": 2690, "wage": 60300 }, { "y": 2020, "emp": 2680, "wage": 63490 }, { "y": 2021, "emp": 2790, "wage": 65090 }, { "y": 2022, "emp": 2520, "wage": 69390 }, { "y": 2023, "emp": 2460, "wage": 70140 }, { "y": 2024, "emp": 2470, "wage": 79120 }, { "y": 2025, "emp": 3100, "wage": 68940 } ], "from": 2017, "to": 2025, "change_pct": 21.6, "comparable_from": 2019, "spans_soc_revision": true }, "pivots": [ { "slug": "agricultural-sciences-teachers-postsecondary", "title": "Agricultural Sciences Teachers, Postsecondary", "verdict": "EXPOSED", "risk_resistance": 56, "median_wage": 98700, "overlap": 74, "skills_to_close": [ "Instructing", "Learning Strategies" ] }, { "slug": "dietitians-and-nutritionists", "title": "Dietitians and Nutritionists", "verdict": "EXPOSED", "risk_resistance": 65, "median_wage": 76400, "overlap": 70, "skills_to_close": [ "Service Orientation", "Social Perceptiveness", "Instructing", "Management of Financial Resources" ] }, { "slug": "farmers-ranchers-and-other-agricultural-managers", "title": "Farmers, Ranchers, and Other Agricultural Managers", "verdict": "EXPOSED", "risk_resistance": 62, "median_wage": 89900, "overlap": 54, "skills_to_close": [ "Equipment Maintenance", "Repairing", "Equipment Selection", "Management of Financial Resources" ] } ], "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms" }