{ "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register", "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/anthropologists-and-archeologists/", "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": "Anthropologists and Archeologists", "soc_code": "19-3091", "category": "Science", "us_employment": 8990, "median_annual_wage": 70770 }, "verdict": "EXPOSED", "risk_resistance": 51, "contested": false, "near_boundary": false, "dimensions": { "task_resistance": 11, "embodiment": 13, "liability_shield": 8, "trust_premium": 7, "judgment_accountability": 12 }, "reasoning": { "task_resistance": "Shovel testing on a 15-meter grid, calling a feature versus a rodent burrow off a soil profile, and identifying diagnostic lithics or sherds in the screen keep this above a 6, but the other half of the billable week — SHPO site forms, background archival review, environmental setting and prior-research report sections, coding ethnographic transcripts — is template text an LLM drafts in minutes, which is why it sits at 11 rather than 15.", "embodiment": "Pedestrian survey means walking transects through brush, cutbanks, swamp margins and construction corridors in whatever weather the project schedule falls in, hauling screens, and excavating units by hand — uncontrolled outdoor work that earns 13 — while it stops short of 17+ because a meaningful share of the year is lab cataloging and report writing at a desk, and field seasons are bounded by client schedules.", "liability_shield": "There is no state licence to practice archeology; the gate is the Secretary of the Interior's Professional Qualifications Standards (36 CFR 61) plus state permits and RPA registration, which are credentials an agency checks before issuing a permit rather than a personal licence that can be revoked and sued against — real friction on who may sign a Section 106 report, but not the personal exposure of a PE or physician, hence 8.", "trust_premium": "Most deliverables are read by a SHPO reviewer or a federal agency archeologist who cares about the findings, not who wrote them, but standing tribal consultation relationships, THPO rapport, and repeat CRM clients who request a specific principal investigator by name give the role more relational value than anonymous technical output — a 7, not a 3.", "judgment_accountability": "Recommending a site eligible or not eligible for the National Register under 36 CFR 60.4 determines whether a project stops, redesigns, or pays for data recovery, and NAGPRA calls on inadvertent discoveries are irreversible — high stakes with genuine ambiguity, but the decision framework is codified in criteria, state guidance and standard mitigation menus, and the agency official makes the final determination, which caps it at 12." }, "rationale": "The modal worker here is not a tenured ethnographer but a cultural resource management archeologist doing Section 106 compliance: pedestrian survey, shovel testing, artifact cataloging, and grinding out technical reports. The field half — walking transects, digging test units, reading soil profiles, handling and identifying artifacts in situ — is genuinely hard to automate, while the desk half (literature and archival review, site form completion, boilerplate report sections, coding interview transcripts) is exactly what language models do cheaply now. What holds value is the signed judgment call: whether a site is eligible for the National Register, what mitigation is adequate, and how to run tribal and community consultation.", "outlook": "Report-writing and background-research hours collapse, shrinking junior desk roles, while permitted field survey and the PI who signs the eligibility call remain in steady demand tied to construction and infrastructure spending.", "what_would_raise_it": { "levers": [ { "dimension": "liability_shield", "change": "State Historic Preservation Offices and the ACHP tightening who may sign Section 106 determinations — e.g. formal adoption of the Secretary of the Interior's Professional Qualification Standards as a hard signature requirement (rather than guidance) in state review rules, plus state-level archaeologist licensure of the kind Nevada, Arkansas and Texas permitting regimes approach, with named-principal liability for inadequate survey. Also plausible: agency rules barring AI-generated report text in submitted determinations without a qualified professional's attestation, mirroring the affidavit rules courts have adopted for AI filings.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 5 }, { "dimension": "judgment_accountability", "change": "Growth in tribal consultation weight — NAGPRA's 2023 revised regulations gave descendant communities explicit deference over disposition and require documented consultation. If consultation becomes the binding gate on project schedules (as it increasingly is on pipeline and transmission permitting), the role's core becomes an accountable negotiator whose calls carry named responsibility for delay and litigation exposure.", "plausibility": "already happening", "would_add": 4 }, { "dimension": "task_resistance", "change": "Task-mix shift: this occupation genuinely has two tiers. If literature review, site-form population, and boilerplate report drafting are automated out, what remains is eligibility determination under ambiguous integrity criteria, in-situ soil and feature interpretation, and consultation. The remaining hours are disproportionately the hard tier — watch for CRM firms billing fewer report-production hours at flat field-hour counts.", "plausibility": "already happening", "would_add": 3 }, { "dimension": "embodiment", "change": "Rises only if survey standards move toward more intensive hand excavation rather than less — e.g. state standards mandating shovel-test intervals or hand-excavated test units where lidar/geophysics/remote sensing would otherwise substitute, or SHPO refusal to accept remote-sensing-only Phase I coverage in specified soil contexts.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 2 } ], "ceiling_note": "Trust premium has no plausible route: the buyer is a permit applicant buying regulatory clearance at lowest cost, not a human archaeologist. Demand is also downside-exposed — NEPA/Section 106 streamlining (2023 Fiscal Responsibility Act amendments, categorical exclusions, permitting-reform bills) could cut the compliance work that supports most of these 8,990 jobs regardless of how the dimensions score. Academic positions are a small and shrinking share and offer no shield." }, "adjudication": null, "employment_history": { "points": [ { "y": 2017, "emp": 6120, "wage": 62280 }, { "y": 2018, "emp": 6020, "wage": 62410 }, { "y": 2019, "emp": 6720, "wage": 63670 }, { "y": 2020, "emp": 7180, "wage": 66130 }, { "y": 2021, "emp": 6650, "wage": 61910 }, { "y": 2022, "emp": 7350, "wage": 63940 }, { "y": 2023, "emp": 7720, "wage": 63800 }, { "y": 2024, "emp": 8070, "wage": 64910 }, { "y": 2025, "emp": 8990, "wage": 70770 } ], "from": 2017, "to": 2025, "change_pct": 46.9, "comparable_from": 2019, "spans_soc_revision": true }, "pivots": [ { "slug": "secondary-school-teachers-except-special-and-career-technical-education", "title": "Secondary School Teachers, Except Special and Career/Technical Education", "verdict": "SAFE", "risk_resistance": 69, "median_wage": 72040, "overlap": 77, "skills_to_close": [ "Instructing", "Social Perceptiveness", "Coordination", "Learning Strategies" ] }, { "slug": "middle-school-teachers-except-special-and-career-technical-education", "title": "Middle School Teachers, Except Special and Career/Technical Education", "verdict": "SAFE", "risk_resistance": 71, "median_wage": 64370, "overlap": 75, "skills_to_close": [ "Instructing", "Learning Strategies", "Social Perceptiveness", "Time Management" ] }, { "slug": "special-education-teachers-middle-school", "title": "Special Education Teachers, Middle School", "verdict": "SAFE", "risk_resistance": 76, "median_wage": 66810, "overlap": 70, "skills_to_close": [ "Service Orientation", "Social Perceptiveness", "Coordination", "Instructing" ] } ], "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms" }