{ "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register", "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/engineering-teachers-postsecondary/", "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": "Engineering Teachers, Postsecondary", "soc_code": "25-1032", "category": "Education", "us_employment": 40270, "median_annual_wage": 109270 }, "verdict": "EXPOSED", "risk_resistance": 52, "contested": false, "near_boundary": false, "dimensions": { "task_resistance": 11, "embodiment": 10, "liability_shield": 3, "trust_premium": 15, "judgment_accountability": 13 }, "reasoning": { "task_resistance": "Statics problem sets, thermo lecture decks, ABET syllabus mapping and NSF broader-impacts boilerplate are the recurring deliverables of a semester and a model drafts them at usable quality, which caps this at 11; what holds it above the automatable band is standing in the lab when a student's tensile rig is misconfigured, scoping a senior design project that must actually build, and calibrating how hard to push a struggling MS candidate.", "embodiment": "You are in the machine shop, the wind tunnel, the clean room or the concrete lab several hours a week — signing off on instrument use, spotting the unsafe fixture, running the demo that doesn't work on the projector — but grading, proposal writing, committee service and lecture prep are screen work, which is why this lands at 10 rather than the 15+ of a field engineer.", "liability_shield": "No licence gates the classroom: most engineering faculty never hold or maintain a PE, ABET accredits the program rather than certifying the individual instructor, and nothing you sign carries personal legal exposure — the 3 reflects only the institutional gatekeeping of the PhD and tenure review, not any statutory protection of the work itself.", "trust_premium": "The recommendation letter with your name on it, the lab you invited a student to join, and the advising conversation that redirects someone from grad school to industry are not substitutable outputs — students choose research groups by advisor, not by curriculum — but this sits at 15 rather than 19 because the 200-seat sophomore lecture is a delivery channel where the relationship is thin and your identity is close to interchangeable.", "judgment_accountability": "You decide which research direction to spend three years and a graduate stipend on, whether a thesis is defensible, whether an academic-integrity case goes to the dean, and how a senior design team's failing prototype is graded — real ambiguous calls with career consequences for others, though bounded by department curricula, promotion committees and IRB/EHS review rather than borne alone, which is what keeps it at 13." }, "rationale": "Lecture slides, problem sets, solution keys, syllabi, grant boilerplate and literature reviews are already produced at usable quality by current models, and much of an engineering professor's week is exactly that. What resists is running a physical lab, supervising senior design and thesis work, judging which research directions are worth funding, and being the named mentor whose recommendation letter and advising a student's career depends on. Scored for the modal tenure-track/teaching-faculty worker; adjunct lecturers teaching high-enrollment intro courses sit meaningfully lower, since online AI-assisted course delivery attacks that tier first.", "outlook": "Lecture delivery and grading get largely automated within a decade, shifting engineering faculty toward lab supervision, funded research, and mentorship — with intro-course and adjunct positions shrinking fastest.", "what_would_raise_it": { "levers": [ { "dimension": "liability_shield", "change": "ABET accreditation criteria (EAC) tightening to require named, credentialed faculty of record to personally attest to student outcome assessment and to certify that capstone/design coursework was evaluated by a human — plus PE-licensure boards (NCEES) requiring that engineering coursework counting toward licensure be taught and graded by identified faculty, not AI-delivered modules. ABET already requires 'sufficient qualified faculty'; an explicit attestation clause is a checkable next step.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 5 }, { "dimension": "liability_shield", "change": "Regional accreditor (SACSCOC/MSCHE) substantive-change rules or state authorization law defining AI-generated instruction as a change requiring approval, with a licensed/credentialed instructor of record legally responsible for academic integrity determinations and grade appeals — currently the weakest link, as grade disputes already land on the named instructor.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 3 }, { "dimension": "task_resistance", "change": "Genuine two-tier structure: if slide decks, problem sets, solution keys and lit reviews are absorbed, the residual week is hands-on lab supervision, senior design review, thesis defense judgment, and lab safety sign-off — tasks with no current substitute. The score rises mechanically as the routine tier leaves, without any new rule.", "plausibility": "already happening", "would_add": 4 }, { "dimension": "task_resistance", "change": "Institutional shift to proctored, oral, and bench-based assessment (oral qualifying exams, in-person design juries, lab practicals) in response to AI-assisted cheating, moving assessment labor into forms that require a present expert examiner.", "plausibility": "already happening", "would_add": 3 }, { "dimension": "embodiment", "change": "Growth of federally funded hands-on infrastructure (CHIPS Act workforce programs, NSF Engineering Research Centers) shifting faculty effort toward cleanroom, fab, wind-tunnel and machine-shop instruction where an accountable human must be physically present for equipment authorization and OSHA/EH&S lab safety compliance.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 3 }, { "dimension": "judgment_accountability", "change": "Expansion of the role's gatekeeping function: serving as named PI on grants where agencies (NIH/NSF) require human attestation that proposals and reviews were not AI-generated — NSF already bars generative AI in merit review — plus personal accountability for research-integrity and authorship decisions in supervised student work.", "plausibility": "already happening", "would_add": 3 }, { "dimension": "trust_premium", "change": "Employers and graduate admissions continuing to weight named-faculty recommendation letters and identified thesis advisors, with letter-writer identity verification becoming explicit as AI-written letters proliferate; if professional societies (IEEE, ASME) or graduate schools formalize verified human-referee requirements, the premium attaches to the person rather than the course.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 2 } ], "ceiling_note": "Two structural caps. First, the adjunct/intro-lecture tier — high-enrollment statics, circuits, thermo — has no realistic route to any of these shields; enrollment-driven cost pressure and existing online-course precedent point the other way, and gains here accrue to tenure-track and lab-owning faculty only. Second, headcount is set by enrollment and state appropriations, not by task resistance: even a fully shielded role can shrink if the department consolidates sections. Liability shield realistically tops out around 8-10; unlike a PE stamp or a medical license, nobody is personally sued for a bad lecture." }, "adjudication": null, "employment_history": { "points": [ { "y": 2017, "emp": 37500, "wage": 98360 }, { "y": 2018, "emp": 37530, "wage": 101720 }, { "y": 2019, "emp": 36080, "wage": 101010 }, { "y": 2020, "emp": 38520, "wage": 103600 }, { "y": 2021, "emp": 35440, "wage": 104940 }, { "y": 2022, "emp": 36010, "wage": 103550 }, { "y": 2023, "emp": 38370, "wage": 106910 }, { "y": 2024, "emp": 39910, "wage": 106120 }, { "y": 2025, "emp": 40270, "wage": 109270 } ], "from": 2017, "to": 2025, "change_pct": 7.4, "comparable_from": 2019, "spans_soc_revision": true }, "pivots": [ { "slug": "civil-engineers", "title": "Civil Engineers", "verdict": "EXPOSED", "risk_resistance": 63, "median_wage": 100840, "overlap": 72, "skills_to_close": [ "Management of Financial Resources", "Management of Material Resources", "Technology Design", "Systems Analysis" ] }, { "slug": "mining-and-geological-engineers-including-mining-safety-engineers", "title": "Mining and Geological Engineers, Including Mining Safety Engineers", "verdict": "SAFE", "risk_resistance": 68, "median_wage": 106220, "overlap": 68, "skills_to_close": [ "Management of Material Resources", "Equipment Selection", "Management of Financial Resources", "Operations Monitoring" ] } ], "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms" }