EXPOSED
Fitting crankshafts, torquing head bolts, aligning gears and verifying tolerances is hand work, not screen work, so language AI barely touches the core day. The real pressure is industrial robotics and fixture automation, which already own high-volume engine lines — what survives is low-volume, large, or variant-heavy builds (marine, industrial, rebuilds, prototypes) where tooling up a cell costs more than a skilled assembler. No license, no client relationship, and work instructions define most decisions, so the only moats are hands and physical presence.
Mixed — a routine tier and a judgment tier. At 13 the score credits what a robot cell still can't do cheaply — feeling a bearing preload, chasing an interference fit on a rebuilt block, working from a marked-up print on a one-off marine or genset build — but it stops short of 14+ because the repetitive torque sequences, gasket placement and press-fit operations that fill a high-volume shift are already done by fixture automation and torque robots on the big lines.
Some physical or field component. An 11 reflects that you're standing at a bench or line with air tools, hoists, presses and micrometers on physical parts — real force, real reach, real dexterity — but the environment is a controlled indoor plant floor with fixed stations, part kitting and defined lighting, not the unpredictable field conditions of a millwright crawling inside a running facility.
No licence, no signature requirement. A 2 is because nothing you install requires you to hold a license or sign off in your own name; the plant's quality inspector, the engineering spec and the manufacturer's warranty absorb the consequence of a bad build, and your traceability stamp on a work order is a shop record, not personal legal exposure.
Anonymous artifact production. A 3 acknowledges only that a foreman knows which assembler to hand the difficult rebuild to — the customer who buys the engine never learns your name, and the assembly can be transferred to another plant or another worker without a single conversation being lost.
Executes defined procedures on defined inputs. At 5, most calls are already made for you by the build sheet, torque spec and go/no-go gauge; the discretion that keeps this above the floor is the decision to stop the line, tag a part out of tolerance, or flag a fit problem before it becomes scrap — real judgment, but exercised inside documented procedure rather than owning the outcome.
Maintenance Workers, Machinery EXPOSED
Machinists EXPOSED
Has AI actually changed your work?