{ "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register", "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/archivists/", "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": "Archivists", "soc_code": "25-4011", "category": "Education", "us_employment": 7970, "median_annual_wage": 64550 }, "verdict": "EXPOSED", "risk_resistance": 43, "contested": false, "near_boundary": false, "dimensions": { "task_resistance": 9, "embodiment": 11, "liability_shield": 4, "trust_premium": 8, "judgment_accountability": 11 }, "reasoning": { "task_resistance": "DACS-compliant finding aids, EAD encoding, series-level description, and accession registers are structured text generation that models already produce at draft quality, and what pulls this to 9 rather than 4 is the irreducible work of opening 200 unlabeled boxes to establish original order and physically arranging series before any description can exist.", "embodiment": "Rehousing brittle nitrate negatives, reformatting open-reel audio and U-matic tape on legacy decks, reading hygrothermograph data in stacks, and appraising a donor's flood-damaged garage put real hands on real objects — but most of the week is still spent at a workstation in a climate-controlled reading room, which is why this sits at 11 and not with the field techs at 16.", "liability_shield": "No state licenses archivists; the Academy of Certified Archivists' CA credential is voluntary, rarely required outside federal and large university postings, and carries no personal legal exposure — your institution's counsel, not you, answers for a wrongful FOIA release or a botched deed of gift.", "trust_premium": "Donor cultivation on a family papers collection can run years and the relationship genuinely closes the deal, but the vast majority of your output — finding aids, catalog records, digitized items — is consumed by researchers who never learn your name, holding this to 8.", "judgment_accountability": "Appraisal is irreversible: deciding a records series has no enduring value means it is destroyed, and restricted-records calls under FERPA, HIPAA, or a 50-year donor closure have no lookup table — but retention schedules, institutional collecting policies, and a supervising director constrain most of those calls, which keeps this at 11 rather than in the high teens." }, "rationale": "The description layer of archival work — writing finding aids, generating metadata, transcribing handwritten documents, subject indexing, and answering routine reference queries — is exactly what current AI does at usable quality, and backlogs are the main reason institutions will adopt it fast. What resists is the physical side: rehousing fragile paper, monitoring environmental conditions, handling deteriorating film and magnetic media, and doing on-site appraisal of a donor's basement. Appraisal decisions (what enters the permanent record and what is destroyed), provenance judgment, restricted-records and privacy determinations, and donor negotiation are consequential calls no one will hand to a model unsupervised — but they're a thin slice of a small occupation with no licensure protecting it.", "outlook": "Description backlogs get cleared by AI and headcount stays flat or falls slightly, with the surviving roles concentrated in appraisal, donor relations, conservation, and digital preservation infrastructure.", "what_would_raise_it": { "levers": [ { "dimension": "judgment_accountability", "change": "If federal/state records-retention regimes make a named archivist personally responsible for disposition authorization — e.g. NARA records-schedule certifications and state records-commission approvals requiring an identified human appraiser to attest that AI-suggested destruction was independently reviewed — appraisal and disposition move from advisory to accountable, and the surviving job is the call, not the description", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 4 }, { "dimension": "task_resistance", "change": "Task-mix shift: once auto-generated finding aids, OCR/HTR transcription and subject indexing are done by machine, the residual day is appraisal, provenance reconstruction of ambiguous accessions, restriction/privacy review under FERPA/HIPAA/state privacy law, and born-digital forensics (disk imaging, format migration, chain-of-custody documentation) — genuinely two-tiered work, and the judgment tier is what remains", "plausibility": "already happening", "would_add": 3 }, { "dimension": "embodiment", "change": "If institutional mandates on born-digital and audiovisual carriers (obsolete magnetic media, nitrate/acetate film, proprietary optical formats) push reformatting deadlines, the hands-on capture and condition-triage work grows as a share of the role; this is fragile, non-standard physical handling that does not template", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 2 }, { "dimension": "liability_shield", "change": "Narrow route only: if courts or evidence rules tighten authentication of archival records (FRE 901/902 self-authentication for digital records) so that a certifying archivist's attestation of chain of custody carries personal exposure — as records managers already sign in litigation-hold contexts — a thin signature requirement appears. No licensure body exists (SAA's Academy of Certified Archivists credential is voluntary and confers no legal standing), so this stays small", "plausibility": "unlikely", "would_add": 3 }, { "dimension": "trust_premium", "change": "Only in provenance-contested and repatriation work: if museum/archive acquisition due diligence under NAGPRA, Indigenous data-sovereignty protocols, or looted-property claims requires a named human researcher's provenance opinion that funders and claimants will accept, buyers pay for the person's judgment specifically", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 2 } ], "ceiling_note": "Structural ceiling is low. 7,970 workers, no licensure, and employers are mostly budget-constrained public institutions and universities whose primary motive for AI adoption is clearing description backlogs cheaply — the same fiscal pressure that drives adoption also prevents any trust premium. The judgment tier is real but thin, so task-mix shift raises resistance per surviving worker while reducing headcount. Realistic composite ceiling around mid-50s, and that is compatible with fewer positions." }, "adjudication": null, "employment_history": { "points": [ { "y": 2017, "emp": 6080, "wage": 51760 }, { "y": 2018, "emp": 6370, "wage": 52240 }, { "y": 2019, "emp": 6560, "wage": 53950 }, { "y": 2020, "emp": 6550, "wage": 56760 }, { "y": 2021, "emp": 6120, "wage": 60050 }, { "y": 2022, "emp": 7230, "wage": 58640 }, { "y": 2023, "emp": 7150, "wage": 59910 }, { "y": 2024, "emp": 7050, "wage": 61570 }, { "y": 2025, "emp": 7970, "wage": 64550 } ], "from": 2017, "to": 2025, "change_pct": 31.1, "comparable_from": 2019, "spans_soc_revision": true }, "pivots": [], "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms" }