{ "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register", "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/dancers/", "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": "Dancers", "soc_code": "27-2031", "category": "Media", "us_employment": 8130, "median_annual_wage": null }, "verdict": "EXPOSED", "risk_resistance": 62, "contested": false, "near_boundary": false, "dimensions": { "task_resistance": 17, "embodiment": 20, "liability_shield": 1, "trust_premium": 15, "judgment_accountability": 9 }, "reasoning": { "task_resistance": "Eight-hour rehearsal days learning combinations by counts, marking spacing to live music tempo changes, holding a partner's weight in a lift and adjusting mid-phrase when the floor is raked or the costume snags — these are the core duties, and none decompose into steps a model can execute, which is why this sits at 17 rather than a perfect 20: audition tapes, motion-capture reference sessions, and background/ensemble screen work are genuinely being substituted.", "embodiment": "The product is the body itself under load — cold studios, sprung and unsprung floors, tour buses, live stages with pyro and moving set pieces, and injury risk to feet, knees and hips that ends careers — there is no version of this job with the dancer offstage, so it takes the ceiling.", "liability_shield": "No state licence, no board certification, no registry: a producer can cast an untrained mover for a music video tomorrow, and the only gatekeeping is AGMA/SAG-AFTRA contracts and the audition room, which is why this is a 1 and not a 5.", "trust_premium": "Principal casting, company contracts and repeat commercial hiring run on a named dancer whose line, reliability in rehearsal and stage presence a director already knows — but corps, ensemble and background work is filled interchangeably from a cattle call, which keeps this at 15 instead of the high teens.", "judgment_accountability": "Choreographers and rehearsal directors set the material and own the artistic call; the dancer's discretion is real but bounded — interpretation of phrasing, split-second recovery when a partner is off their mark, and the decision to dance injured or pull out of a show — consequential to a single performance rather than to anyone's money or safety, which puts it at 9." }, "rationale": "Dancing is trained physical performance in real time — rehearsal, partnering, spatial adjustment to a live stage and a live audience — and none of that is screen work AI can take. The real exposure is upstream and adjacent: generative video and motion synthesis are eating commercial, music-video, background, and animation-reference work, and choreographers increasingly prototype ideas without bodies in the room. The score lands mid-range not because a machine will dance, but because the occupation has no licensure, thin bargaining power outside union houses, and a shrinking pool of paid screen and commercial gigs subsidizing the live tier.", "outlook": "Live stage, touring, and studio teaching hold up over the next decade, while commercial screen and background dance work thins as synthetic motion gets cheap.", "what_would_raise_it": { "levers": [ { "dimension": "trust_premium", "change": "Enforceable 'live human performer' guarantees and AI-disclosure labels in ticketing and commercial work — e.g. SAG-AFTRA's post-2023 consent/compensation terms for digital replicas extended explicitly to dancers' movement data, plus Equity/AGMA contract riders barring synthetic bodies substituting for contracted ensembles. If presenters and brands must disclose synthetic performers, the premium on verified live bodies is priced rather than assumed.", "plausibility": "already happening", "would_add": 3 }, { "dimension": "trust_premium", "change": "Motion-capture and likeness licensing becoming a paid, negotiated revenue stream rather than a buyout: a residual structure for dancers whose captured movement trains or drives generative models, along the lines of the AI provisions in the 2023 SAG-AFTRA TV/Theatrical agreement and NY's digital replica law (S7676B).", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 2 }, { "dimension": "task_resistance", "change": "Task-mix shift as background, commercial and animation-reference work is synthesized away: what remains is live partnering, repertory reconstruction, and audience-responsive performance. This raises the resistance of the surviving job while shrinking headcount — resistance up, employment down.", "plausibility": "already happening", "would_add": 2 }, { "dimension": "judgment_accountability", "change": "Formal expansion of dancer roles into rehearsal direction, repetiteur work, and credited co-choreography — already contractual in some ballet and modern companies — putting consequential casting and staging calls in the dancer's hands rather than the choreographer's alone.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 3 } ], "ceiling_note": "Liability shield has no realistic route: there is no licensure, no statutory signer, no personal liability attached to performing, and no professional body positioned to create one. Ceiling is roughly 70 — the binding constraint is the number of paid contracts, not the automatability of dancing, and nothing above raises headcount." }, "adjudication": null, "employment_history": { "points": [ { "y": 2017, "emp": 9930, "wage": null }, { "y": 2018, "emp": 9720, "wage": null }, { "y": 2019, "emp": 9690, "wage": null }, { "y": 2020, "emp": 7370, "wage": null }, { "y": 2021, "emp": 3850, "wage": null }, { "y": 2022, "emp": 8930, "wage": null }, { "y": 2023, "emp": 11510, "wage": null }, { "y": 2024, "emp": 9060, "wage": null }, { "y": 2025, "emp": 8130, "wage": null } ], "from": 2017, "to": 2025, "change_pct": -18.1, "comparable_from": 2019, "spans_soc_revision": true }, "pivots": [], "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms" }