{ "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register", "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/court-reporters-and-simultaneous-captioners/", "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": "Court Reporters and Simultaneous Captioners", "soc_code": "27-3092", "category": "Media", "us_employment": 12870, "median_annual_wage": 72420 }, "verdict": "EXPOSED", "risk_resistance": 34, "contested": false, "near_boundary": true, "dimensions": { "task_resistance": 4, "embodiment": 5, "liability_shield": 12, "trust_premium": 7, "judgment_accountability": 6 }, "reasoning": { "task_resistance": "Verbatim capture of spoken proceedings, timestamping, and rough-draft turnaround are now done end-to-end by ASR engines that outperform stenographers on multi-speaker broadcast feeds at a fraction of the cost, and even readback and speaker identification are increasingly handled by diarization plus an audio scrub, which is why this sits at 4 rather than mid-band — the residual human work is proofreading a machine draft, not producing the record.", "embodiment": "A 5 reflects that you physically show up: hauling and setting the steno machine, tripod mics, and backup recorders into courtrooms, hotel conference rooms, hospital bedsides for medical depositions, and occasionally site inspections, but the environment is climate-controlled and the work is done seated at a keyboard, so there is nothing hands-on that a technician couldn't replicate.", "liability_shield": "The 12 is carried by state licensure — CSR or RPR registration in California, Texas, and roughly two dozen other states, notary authority to administer the oath under Rule 30(b), and your personal certificate on the transcript that makes you the one deposed if accuracy is challenged — but it stops well short of 20 because captioning work requires no licence at all and states have been actively authorizing digital reporting with an unlicensed monitor to fill vacancies.", "trust_premium": "A 7 recognizes that firms and litigators rebook the reporter who delivers clean rough drafts overnight, catches unclear speech before the record closes, and handles read-and-sign without drama, but the client relationship belongs to the agency that schedules you, the deponent never chose you, and a substitute reporter on short notice is routine — the transcript, not the rapport, is what gets paid for.", "judgment_accountability": "At 6, your discretion is real but tightly bounded: deciding when to interrupt for a clarification, how to mark an inaudible or a stipulation, applying the transcript format rules of the jurisdiction and the accepted punctuation conventions — all procedural calls with written guidance behind them, not ambiguous decisions where you own the outcome." }, "rationale": "The core task — converting speech to accurate text in real time — is exactly what automatic speech recognition now does at usable quality, including live captioning of broadcasts and meetings, which is the tier collapsing fastest. What holds the occupation up is regulatory: many states require a certified shorthand reporter or licensed notary to administer oaths, certify the official transcript, and be personally accountable for its accuracy in a deposition or courtroom, and 'digital reporting' with a human monitor is already the cost-cutting compromise. Expect the job to contract toward certified legal reporting and away from captioning, with pay pressure as ASR-plus-editor becomes the default workflow.", "outlook": "By the mid-2030s captioning work is largely machine-plus-editor, while a smaller, credentialed core of court reporters survives on oath-taking, certification, and messy live proceedings.", "what_would_raise_it": { "levers": [ { "dimension": "liability_shield", "change": "State supreme court rules or legislation explicitly barring electronic/digital recording as the official record in courts of record and requiring a CSR/RPR-certified reporter to swear witnesses and certify transcripts — the pattern in California (CCP §269 and the CSR Board's stenographic-only official record) and in bills backed by NCRA state affiliates in Texas, Illinois and New Jersey. A rule that ASR-generated transcripts are inadmissible as the official record without a certified human certification page and personal liability for accuracy would lift this further.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 5 }, { "dimension": "liability_shield", "change": "Court rules requiring the certifying reporter to attest under penalty of perjury that no automated transcription was used unattended, or to disclose AI assistance — analogous to emerging judicial standing orders on AI use in filings. Personal exposure for an uncertified AI-assisted transcript raises the shield.", "plausibility": "already happening", "would_add": 3 }, { "dimension": "task_resistance", "change": "Task-mix shift: as broadcast/CART captioning and meeting transcription collapse to ASR, the surviving work is realtime deposition with crosstalk, heavy accents, technical/medical terminology, readback on demand, and exhibit marking — the tier ASR fails at. The occupation genuinely has two tiers and the residual is the judgment tier.", "plausibility": "already happening", "would_add": 4 }, { "dimension": "judgment_accountability", "change": "Formal duties that require on-the-spot calls: ruling on whether a record is audible enough to proceed, interrupting for clarification, producing certified readback during objections, and handling sealed/redacted testimony. If state boards codify these as non-delegable reporter duties (as NCRA's proposed standards for the official record do), the role owns consequential ambiguity calls rather than just typing.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 4 }, { "dimension": "trust_premium", "change": "Litigation-driven demand: appellate reversals or sanctions traced to garbled AI transcripts (already litigated in disputes over digital-recording gaps) leading large litigation firms and insurers to specify stenographic reporters in engagement terms. Narrow, and confined to high-stakes civil work.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 3 } ], "ceiling_note": "Even with strong stenographer-protection statutes, the ceiling is low: the protected niche is a shrinking share of a 12,870-worker occupation, many states have already authorized digital reporting with a non-certified monitor during reporter shortages, and captioning has no licensure hook at all. Deaf/HoH accessibility law (ADA, FCC caption quality rules) mandates accuracy, not a human — so it does not become a liability shield for the captioner." }, "adjudication": { "method": "two independent runs agreed on the verdict", "outcome": "corroborated", "run_totals": [ 34, 37 ], "run_verdicts": [ "EXPOSED", "EXPOSED" ] }, "employment_history": { "points": [ { "y": 2019, "emp": 14530, "wage": 60130 }, { "y": 2020, "emp": 13880, "wage": 61660 }, { "y": 2021, "emp": 12300, "wage": 60380 }, { "y": 2022, "emp": 14240, "wage": 63560 }, { "y": 2023, "emp": 12390, "wage": 63940 }, { "y": 2024, "emp": 12630, "wage": 67310 }, { "y": 2025, "emp": 12870, "wage": 72420 } ], "from": 2019, "to": 2025, "change_pct": -11.4, "comparable_from": 2019, "spans_soc_revision": false }, "pivots": [], "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms" }