{
  "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register",
  "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/barbers/",
  "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": "Barbers",
    "soc_code": "39-5011",
    "category": "Personal Care",
    "us_employment": 15000,
    "median_annual_wage": 38210
  },
  "verdict": "SAFE",
  "risk_resistance": 76,
  "contested": false,
  "near_boundary": false,
  "dimensions": {
    "task_resistance": 18,
    "embodiment": 20,
    "liability_shield": 13,
    "trust_premium": 17,
    "judgment_accountability": 8
  },
  "reasoning": {
    "task_resistance": "Blending a fade across an occipital bone you can only judge by feel, adjusting shear pressure as cowlicks and density change every inch, and freehand razor-edging a hairline sit at 18 because the only genuinely digitisable parts of the day are the booking app and the card reader.",
    "embodiment": "You stand six to ten hours a day within arm's reach of an unrestrained head that shifts when someone talks or laughs, working with open blades, hot lather, and clipper vibration in a room you share with walk-ins — there is no version of this performed remotely.",
    "liability_shield": "Every state requires a barber license with hour-based training, a practical exam, and enforceable sanitation law on implement disinfection and blood-spill protocol, and the board can suspend you personally for a nick or a fungal transmission — it lands at 13 rather than 18 because a haircut carries no malpractice exposure comparable to a nurse's or an electrician's.",
    "trust_premium": "Clients book you by name and follow you when you change shops, because you remember their part, their growth pattern, and what their job allows — that portable book is the asset, not the chair.",
    "judgment_accountability": "You decide what a cowlick or thinning crown can carry and read what the client actually means by \"a little off the top,\" but the call is reversible in three weeks and nobody's health or money is on the line, which is why this is 8 and not mid-teens."
  },
  "rationale": "Cutting, fading, edging, and straight-razor shaving are fine-motor work on a moving human head with variable hair texture and skull shape — nothing in current robotics comes close. Every state requires a barber license with sanitation and bloodborne-pathogen rules, and clients pick a specific barber and stay for years, so the relationship is the product. AI touches only the back office: booking, reminders, marketing copy, and style-preview mockups.",
  "outlook": "In ten years barbering looks nearly identical at the chair; the change is that scheduling and marketing are fully automated and the barbers who own their client book keep the most income.",
  "what_would_raise_it": {
    "levers": [
      {
        "dimension": "liability_shield",
        "change": "State barber boards tightening rather than loosening licensure — e.g. retaining straight-razor shaving as a barber-only act with mandatory bloodborne-pathogen certification, and adding personal liability for sanitation violations found in inspection. The countervailing live threat is deregulation: Arizona-style universal-recognition and hours-reduction bills (and repeated proposals to exempt hair-only 'natural styling') cut the shield instead. A rule expressly barring unlicensed practice with AI-assisted or automated cutting devices would add most.",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 3
      },
      {
        "dimension": "trust_premium",
        "change": "Continued shift of revenue to booth-rent/independent barbers with named-chair booking (Booksy, Squire) and deposit-backed appointments, where clients pay a premium for a specific person rather than a chain queue. Any measurable rise in average ticket for named-barber bookings versus walk-in chains registers this.",
        "plausibility": "already happening",
        "would_add": 2
      },
      {
        "dimension": "judgment_accountability",
        "change": "Scope expansion into consequential calls: formal training and referral protocols for spotting scalp lesions and suspicious moles (dermatology-partnership programs already run in some cities), plus chair-side mental-health first-aid certification. If any state board or employer makes such screening/referral a documented duty, the role starts owning calls with real downside.",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 3
      }
    ],
    "ceiling_note": "Already near ceiling on the two capability dimensions; embodiment is maxed and task_resistance has no second tier to shift into, since the back office AI takes was never the job. Realistic headroom is a few points of institutional scoring, and the more likely institutional movement is downward via occupational-licensing deregulation."
  },
  "adjudication": null,
  "employment_history": {
    "points": [
      {
        "y": 2017,
        "emp": 18810,
        "wage": 25650
      },
      {
        "y": 2018,
        "emp": 20130,
        "wage": 27960
      },
      {
        "y": 2019,
        "emp": 20030,
        "wage": 30150
      },
      {
        "y": 2020,
        "emp": 14880,
        "wage": 32470
      },
      {
        "y": 2021,
        "emp": 12910,
        "wage": 29970
      },
      {
        "y": 2022,
        "emp": 12690,
        "wage": 34990
      },
      {
        "y": 2023,
        "emp": 15990,
        "wage": 36150
      },
      {
        "y": 2024,
        "emp": 18100,
        "wage": 38960
      },
      {
        "y": 2025,
        "emp": 15000,
        "wage": 38210
      }
    ],
    "from": 2017,
    "to": 2025,
    "change_pct": -20.3,
    "comparable_from": 2019,
    "spans_soc_revision": true
  },
  "pivots": [],
  "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms"
}