{ "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register", "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/electrical-power-line-installers-and-repairers/", "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": "Electrical Power-Line Installers and Repairers", "soc_code": "49-9051", "category": "Trades", "us_employment": 131070, "median_annual_wage": 95320 }, "verdict": "SAFE", "risk_resistance": 68, "contested": false, "near_boundary": false, "dimensions": { "task_resistance": 17, "embodiment": 20, "liability_shield": 9, "trust_premium": 8, "judgment_accountability": 14 }, "reasoning": { "task_resistance": "Framing a new pole, hot-sticking a 12kV tap, phasing a bank of transformers, and rerouting a downed primary through unfamiliar backyard easements are decided and executed in the same motion at the top of the pole — a 17 rather than 20 because switching orders, work packets, mapping, and inspection triage are already being written by software before you leave the yard.", "embodiment": "Bucket work in 25mph wind, climbing gaffs into an ice-loaded crossarm, digging out a padmount in mud, and working de-energized-but-verified next to backfeed from a customer generator is the full 20: uncontrolled environment, live hazard, no fixed workpiece geometry for a robot to reference.", "liability_shield": "A 9 reflects that the trade runs on completed apprenticeship, CDL, OSHA 1910.269 and often a journeyman lineworker card plus employer qualification-to-work-energized rather than a state licence — nobody stamps a drawing in your name, so when a switching error causes a backfeed the utility and the general foreman absorb the exposure, though your qualified-worker status can be pulled personally.", "trust_premium": "Customers see a truck, not you — the relationship that matters is inside the crew and with the dispatcher and substation operator who take your word on clearances and tags, which is real earned trust but transferable when you move districts, so 8 not 15.", "judgment_accountability": "A 14 is earned at the point where you decide a pole is too rotten to climb, that the line is truly dead despite the paperwork, or whether to backfeed a hospital from an alternate feeder during a storm restoration — ambiguous calls with lethal and citywide consequences, held down from higher only because clearance procedures and switching authority are formalized." }, "rationale": "The job is climbing poles and bucket trucks, pulling and splicing energized conductors, setting transformers, and restoring service in storms and mud at 3am — none of which current robotics can do. AI touches the paperwork edges: outage prediction, switching-order generation, load and fault analysis, dispatch routing, inspection imagery from drones and LiDAR. Grid buildout, electrification, and aging infrastructure mean demand rises while the physical work stays human; the real hazards to this job are utility cost-cutting and contractor labor structures, not software.", "outlook": "Grid expansion, data-center load, and storm hardening keep demand growing through the 2030s; AI reshapes dispatch and inspection while the climbing, splicing, and restoration work stays firmly human.", "what_would_raise_it": { "levers": [ { "dimension": "liability_shield", "change": "OSHA 1910.269 / NESC-style rules or state PUC orders requiring a qualified line worker to personally verify and sign clearance/switching orders and grounding before energization — i.e. explicitly barring AI-generated switching orders from being executed without a named qualified employee's countersignature. IBEW local agreements already require two-person switching and personal grounding verification; codifying 'no autonomous switching authority' at the state PUC level would push this up.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 4 }, { "dimension": "liability_shield", "change": "Post-wildfire liability regimes (California SB 901/AB 1054 wildfire fund, PG&E criminal plea conditions) that make documented human inspection sign-off a condition of cost recovery or insurance — drone/AI imagery accepted only when a qualified human attests to the condition finding.", "plausibility": "already happening", "would_add": 3 }, { "dimension": "judgment_accountability", "change": "Storm-restoration and re-energization decisions formally vested in the field crew leader rather than a remote control center — e.g. utility work rules giving the on-site qualified worker unilateral authority to refuse energization, as several IBEW contracts and post-Maui/Camp Fire operating procedures now do.", "plausibility": "already happening", "would_add": 3 }, { "dimension": "task_resistance", "change": "Task-mix shift: as drone/LiDAR inspection and AI outage prediction absorb routine patrol and paperwork, the remaining day concentrates on energized splicing, transformer setting, and ambiguous storm damage triage — the tier no software or robot touches.", "plausibility": "already happening", "would_add": 2 }, { "dimension": "trust_premium", "change": "Utility staffing rules or state PUC reliability orders mandating minimum in-house (non-contractor) qualified line crews per service territory, as debated after contractor-related wildfire and restoration failures. This is a labor-structure protection rather than a buyer preference for humans.", "plausibility": "unlikely", "would_add": 2 } ], "ceiling_note": "Trust premium has almost no route here: ratepayers do not choose their lineworker and cannot pay a premium for a human one. Embodiment is already maxed. The real downside risks are contractor conversion and utility headcount cuts, which no dimension on this register captures." }, "adjudication": null, "employment_history": { "points": [ { "y": 2017, "emp": 116650, "wage": 69380 }, { "y": 2018, "emp": 114800, "wage": 70910 }, { "y": 2019, "emp": 111660, "wage": 72520 }, { "y": 2020, "emp": 114930, "wage": 75030 }, { "y": 2021, "emp": 123940, "wage": 78310 }, { "y": 2022, "emp": 119510, "wage": 82340 }, { "y": 2023, "emp": 120170, "wage": 85420 }, { "y": 2024, "emp": 123680, "wage": 92560 }, { "y": 2025, "emp": 131070, "wage": 95320 } ], "from": 2017, "to": 2025, "change_pct": 12.4, "comparable_from": 2019, "spans_soc_revision": true }, "pivots": [], "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms" }