{ "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register", "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/curators/", "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": "Curators", "soc_code": "25-4012", "category": "Education", "us_employment": 12150, "median_annual_wage": 63420 }, "verdict": "EXPOSED", "risk_resistance": 49, "contested": false, "near_boundary": false, "dimensions": { "task_resistance": 11, "embodiment": 11, "liability_shield": 3, "trust_premium": 11, "judgment_accountability": 13 }, "reasoning": { "task_resistance": "The write-heavy half of the job — TMS/PastPerfect data entry, label copy, exhibition didactics, loan-agreement paperwork, grant reporting to IMLS or NEH — is now draftable by machine, but selecting what enters an exhibition, negotiating loans with a peer institution's registrar, and standing in front of an unframed canvas deciding whether the craquelure reads as period keep this at 11 rather than in single digits.", "embodiment": "Curators are in storage vaults and on gallery floors more than the title suggests — checking RH and lux readings, condition-reporting incoming crates, directing mount-making and hang heights, doing site visits to a collector's damp basement — but preparators and conservators do the actual heavy handling and interventive treatment, which caps it at 11 instead of the 15+ of a field conservator.", "liability_shield": "There is no state license to curate; AAM accreditation and AAMD guidelines bind the institution, not the individual, and a curator who mis-attributes a work or accepts a piece with a broken provenance chain faces reputational and employment consequences while the museum's directors and insurers absorb the legal exposure — hence 3, not 0, since the field polices credentials informally through a small, long-memoried professional network.", "trust_premium": "Donors give collections to a person they have cultivated over years, source communities under NAGPRA consult with the individual who returned their calls, and scholars lend on the strength of a named curator's reputation — but a large share of curatorial output reaches the public anonymously as an unsigned label or an object record, which is why this sits at 11 rather than the 16+ of a private dealer.", "judgment_accountability": "Acquisition, deaccession, attribution, and repatriation decisions are made on incomplete provenance in the face of competing claims, and they are permanent — a wrongly deaccessioned object does not come back, and a NAGPRA determination or a Nazi-era restitution call will be re-litigated by successors and press for decades — with the ceiling set only by the fact that boards and directors formally sign off." }, "rationale": "A large share of a curator's week is text and screen work AI already does passably: cataloging records, wall labels, catalog essays, condition-report write-ups, grant narratives, and literature searches on provenance. What resists is the physical side — handling and installing objects, judging authenticity and condition in the room — plus the accountability for acquisition, deaccession, and repatriation calls that a board, donor, or source community will question for decades. There is no license behind the title, so the protection comes from institutional trust and scarcity of positions rather than from law.", "outlook": "Curator headcount stays small and flat while AI absorbs the cataloging and label-writing load, so the surviving roles skew toward object expertise, acquisition ethics, and donor-facing accountability.", "what_would_raise_it": { "levers": [ { "dimension": "liability_shield", "change": "NAGPRA's revised regulations (43 CFR 10, effective January 2024) already require a named institutional official to certify inventories, obtain documented tribal consent before exhibiting or researching cultural items, and expose institutions to civil penalties. If federal agencies begin assessing penalties against named individuals, or if grant conditions (IMLS, NEH) require a named curator of record to attest to compliance, the sign-off becomes personal rather than institutional.", "plausibility": "already happening", "would_add": 4 }, { "dimension": "liability_shield", "change": "Export/import controls already require a human attestation: CITES permits for ivory, tortoiseshell and feather in collections; State Department cultural-property MOU certifications; UK/EU export licence applications. If customs or insurers begin requiring that the condition and authenticity statement on loan and export paperwork be signed by a named individual who is personally attestable — as fine-art underwriters (AXA XL, Hiscox) already push toward for high-value loans — the countersignature attaches to the curator.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 3 }, { "dimension": "trust_premium", "change": "A wave of AI-fabricated provenance documents entering the market (plausible given how much of provenance research is now text-matching) would make buyer-side demand shift toward named human attribution. Watch for auction houses and AAMD member museums adopting a rule that provenance chains must be certified by a named scholar who inspected physical documents, analogous to the Art Loss Register's human-review requirement.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 3 }, { "dimension": "judgment_accountability", "change": "Restitution decisions under the HEAR Act and the emerging African-collections repatriation frameworks (Benin Bronzes precedents, Smithsonian's 2022 ethical returns policy) put a named curator's recommendation in front of a board and, increasingly, a press cycle and a claimant's counsel. If ethical-returns policies spread to state and university museums with a documented curatorial recommendation of record, the consequential-call share of the job rises.", "plausibility": "already happening", "would_add": 3 }, { "dimension": "task_resistance", "change": "Genuine two-tier structure: label writing, catalog data entry, condition-report prose and grant narrative drafting are the routine tier and are being automated first. If institutions absorb that automation without cutting headcount — the pattern in small museums where the curator is also registrar and installer — the residual job is authenticity judgment in the room, acquisition argument, and community consultation, and measured resistance rises without any capability change.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 3 } ], "ceiling_note": "No licensure exists for the title and no professional body has proposed one; AAM accreditation certifies institutions, not people, so the liability_shield route caps well short of the medical or engineering pattern. Trust premium is also constrained by field economics: 12,150 positions concentrated in budget-constrained institutions means willingness-to-pay for a human curator is set by boards and donors, not by a broad buyer market." }, "adjudication": null, "employment_history": { "points": [ { "y": 2017, "emp": 11550, "wage": 53770 }, { "y": 2018, "emp": 12280, "wage": 53780 }, { "y": 2019, "emp": 12890, "wage": 54570 }, { "y": 2020, "emp": 11750, "wage": 56990 }, { "y": 2021, "emp": 11030, "wage": 60110 }, { "y": 2022, "emp": 11620, "wage": 60380 }, { "y": 2023, "emp": 12510, "wage": 61750 }, { "y": 2024, "emp": 12280, "wage": 61770 }, { "y": 2025, "emp": 12150, "wage": 63420 } ], "from": 2017, "to": 2025, "change_pct": 5.2, "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": 66, "skills_to_close": [ "Instructing", "Learning Strategies", "Coordination", "Social Perceptiveness" ] }, { "slug": "clergy", "title": "Clergy", "verdict": "SAFE", "risk_resistance": 69, "median_wage": 60810, "overlap": 66, "skills_to_close": [ "Service Orientation", "Instructing", "Persuasion", "Social Perceptiveness" ] }, { "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": 63, "skills_to_close": [ "Instructing", "Learning Strategies", "Coordination", "Social Perceptiveness" ] } ], "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms" }