{ "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register", "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/explosives-workers-ordnance-handling-experts-and-blasters/", "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": "Explosives Workers, Ordnance Handling Experts, and Blasters", "soc_code": "47-5032", "category": "Construction", "us_employment": 5100, "median_annual_wage": 61390 }, "verdict": "SAFE", "risk_resistance": 77, "contested": false, "near_boundary": false, "dimensions": { "task_resistance": 15, "embodiment": 19, "liability_shield": 17, "trust_premium": 9, "judgment_accountability": 17 }, "reasoning": { "task_resistance": "Blast design software can generate the pattern and predict fragmentation, but someone still has to walk the face, measure actual burden and stemming depth hole by hole, adjust for a mud seam or a void the drill log missed, prime the cast boosters, and tie in the surface delays — the 15 rather than 18 reflects that the paperwork, seismograph logs, and pattern layout are already largely digital.", "embodiment": "You are in an open pit or a road cut in whatever weather, lowering explosives into wet 4-inch holes, dealing with hot holes and misfires by hand, hauling day boxes and magazines, and physically clearing and guarding the blast radius before you push the button — there is no controlled bay version of this job.", "liability_shield": "An ATF federal explosives license or permit plus a state blaster-in-charge certificate is legally required to possess and shoot, your name goes on the blast log and the shot report, and if flyrock crosses a property line or a neighbor's foundation cracks it is your certificate that gets pulled and your deposition that gets taken under state mining and DOT rules.", "trust_premium": "Quarry operators and general contractors do stick with a blaster whose shots keep vibration under the 0.5 in/sec limit and don't draw complaints, and municipal permits often hinge on a known name, but the work is contracted on schedule and price and the buyer is a company, not a homeowner who chose you personally — hence 9, not 15.", "judgment_accountability": "The call to shoot, delay, or stand down on a face that looks loose, and the decision on how to approach a suspected misfire, are made in minutes with incomplete geology and no chance to revise once the shot is fired — 30 CFR and state rules set the perimeter but not the judgment inside it." }, "rationale": "The job is loading boreholes, wiring initiation systems, judging rock face conditions, and calling the shot on a live site — none of that is screen work, and robotics is nowhere near handling primed detonators in a quarry. Software already helps with blast pattern design, vibration modeling, and regulatory paperwork, and that share will grow. But federal ATF licensing, state blaster certification, and personal liability for flyrock, misfires, and neighboring structures keep a named human on the pad.", "outlook": "Employment stays small and stable; AI absorbs blast design and compliance paperwork while the licensed human on the pad who loads, inspects, and fires remains legally mandatory.", "what_would_raise_it": { "levers": [ { "dimension": "liability_shield", "change": "An ATF or MSHA rulemaking (or state fire marshal/blaster-certification board rule) that explicitly names the licensed blaster-in-charge as the required signer for software-generated blast designs and shot reports, with personal certificate revocation for flyrock or misfire events — i.e., closing the gap where a design tool's output could travel unsigned. Several state blasting programs (e.g., PA DEP, Ohio, Kentucky surface-mine rules) already tie seismograph records and shot logs to a named certified blaster; extending that signature duty to AI-produced pattern designs and vibration predictions would push this toward ceiling.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 2 }, { "dimension": "task_resistance", "change": "Genuine two-tier job: if pattern design, vibration/airblast modeling, pre-blast survey documentation, and regulatory filings are absorbed by software, the residual day is loading primed holes, reading an actual rock face for voids and seams, and aborting a shot — the tier that stays. Score rises by subtraction rather than by any new capability barrier.", "plausibility": "already happening", "would_add": 2 }, { "dimension": "judgment_accountability", "change": "If insurers underwriting blasting near occupied structures require a documented, named-human abort authority and pre-shot condition attestation as a policy condition (as some construction surety and pollution/vibration liability carriers already do for urban demolition), the abort call becomes a contractually owned consequential decision rather than an informal one.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 2 } ], "ceiling_note": "Already 77 with embodiment at 19 and two institutional dimensions near the top — realistic headroom is a few points at most. Trust premium is the dead end: quarry operators, pipeline contractors, and demolition GCs buy a permitted shot at a price, not a human artisan, so there is no route to buyers paying specifically for a person. The real risk to this occupation is not displacement but shrinking demand from fewer shots per site and crew consolidation, which the register does not score." }, "adjudication": null, "employment_history": { "points": [ { "y": 2021, "emp": 5370, "wage": 53040 }, { "y": 2022, "emp": 4710, "wage": 56670 }, { "y": 2023, "emp": 4610, "wage": 61590 }, { "y": 2024, "emp": 5680, "wage": 59110 }, { "y": 2025, "emp": 5100, "wage": 61390 } ], "from": 2021, "to": 2025, "change_pct": -5, "comparable_from": 2021, "spans_soc_revision": false }, "pivots": [], "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms" }