{ "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register", "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/first-line-supervisors-of-construction-trades-and-extraction-workers/", "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": "First-Line Supervisors of Construction Trades and Extraction Workers", "soc_code": "47-1011", "category": "Construction", "us_employment": 812210, "median_annual_wage": 79920 }, "verdict": "SAFE", "risk_resistance": 73, "contested": false, "near_boundary": false, "dimensions": { "task_resistance": 15, "embodiment": 18, "liability_shield": 11, "trust_premium": 13, "judgment_accountability": 16 }, "reasoning": { "task_resistance": "The automatable share is real but thin — daily reports, look-ahead updates, takeoffs and timesheets — while the bulk of the shift is reading actual conditions (soil that's wetter than the geotech said, a subcontractor stacking trades in the same 10 feet) and redirecting bodies, which is why this lands at 15 rather than the 18 a pure field craftsman would get.", "embodiment": "An 18 reflects that the job is physically inseparable from the site: climbing scaffold to check tie-offs, putting hands on a form before a pour, walking a trench box, standing in the excavation zone during a lift — all in weather, mud and live-equipment traffic, with only the trailer paperwork done sitting down.", "liability_shield": "OSHA 29 CFR 1926 competent-person designation puts a named individual personally on the hook for inspecting excavations, scaffolds and fall protection, and citations follow that designation, but the underlying credential is a training card rather than a state license in most trades — so 11, not the 16+ a licensed electrical or plumbing contractor of record carries.", "trust_premium": "At 13 the relationship is genuinely part of the output: the crew works safely and fast because they respect this specific foreman, and the GM, inspector and owner's rep take his word on percent-complete and hidden conditions — but he is replaceable to the general contractor in a way a client-facing designer is not.", "judgment_accountability": "A 16 is warranted because the stop-work call, the decision to accept or reject a questionable weld or pour, and the choice to send a crew home on a lightning day are made in minutes with incomplete information and carry injury, fatality and schedule-damages consequences that the supervisor answers for by name." }, "rationale": "Construction foremen spend their days on active job sites — walking the work, sequencing crews against weather and late material deliveries, catching a bad pour or an unsafe scaffold before it becomes a claim. AI can absorb the paperwork tail (daily reports, schedule updates, RFI drafts, quantity takeoffs, timesheet reconciliation), but nobody is automating the call to stop work, retrain a green apprentice, or renegotiate the sequence when the crane shows up a day early. Licensure varies by trade and state, though OSHA competent-person designation and the personal accountability for crew safety function as a real shield.", "outlook": "Site supervision stays a human job through the 2030s; the reporting and scheduling burden shrinks, letting foremen cover more square footage per person and pushing some headcount toward larger spans of control.", "what_would_raise_it": { "levers": [ { "dimension": "liability_shield", "change": "OSHA's long-pending crane operator/competent-person rulemakings and state analogs (e.g., California's Cal/OSHA excavation permit regime, NYC DOB Site Safety Manager and 40-hour SST card requirements after Local Law 196) extended so that a named, certified competent person must personally sign daily inspection records for scaffolds, excavations, and fall protection — with citations issued to the individual rather than only the employer. Also: general contractor insurers (Travelers, Zurich construction practices) conditioning wrap-up liability coverage on a named on-site superintendent countersigning AI-generated inspection and pre-task plans.", "plausibility": "already happening", "would_add": 4 }, { "dimension": "judgment_accountability", "change": "If AI takes over scheduling, takeoffs, and reporting, the residual role is stop-work authority, crew discipline, and sequence renegotiation under ambiguity — and criminal-exposure precedent (post-Hard Rock New Orleans and Florida International University bridge cases, plus NY's construction-fatality prosecutions) keeps naming the supervisor on site as the accountable party.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 2 }, { "dimension": "task_resistance", "change": "Task-mix shift: the paperwork tier (daily reports, RFI drafts, timesheet reconciliation, quantity takeoffs) is genuinely automatable and is being absorbed by Procore/Autodesk copilots, leaving a day composed almost entirely of the judgment tier — reading crew competence, catching a bad pour, resequencing around a late delivery. The score rises because the denominator shrinks, not because AI got worse.", "plausibility": "already happening", "would_add": 3 }, { "dimension": "embodiment", "change": "Little headroom; already 18. Only route is jobsite conditions getting less structured (more retrofit/renovation and disaster-rebuild work versus greenfield tract building), which raises the share of unpredictable-environment judgment.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 1 } ], "ceiling_note": "Trust premium is the one to leave alone: owners and GCs buy schedule and safety outcomes, not a human foreman as such, and no owner is specifying 'human-supervised' as a purchased attribute. Overall ceiling is roughly mid-80s — embodiment and judgment are near max already, and the realistic gain is concentrated in liability_shield if competent-person designation hardens into individual signature-and-citation exposure." }, "adjudication": null, "employment_history": { "points": [ { "y": 2017, "emp": 556300, "wage": 64070 }, { "y": 2018, "emp": 598210, "wage": 65230 }, { "y": 2019, "emp": 626180, "wage": 66210 }, { "y": 2020, "emp": 614080, "wage": 67840 }, { "y": 2021, "emp": 665870, "wage": 72010 }, { "y": 2022, "emp": 720900, "wage": 74080 }, { "y": 2023, "emp": 777420, "wage": 76760 }, { "y": 2024, "emp": 806080, "wage": 78690 }, { "y": 2025, "emp": 812210, "wage": 79920 } ], "from": 2017, "to": 2025, "change_pct": 46, "comparable_from": 2019, "spans_soc_revision": true }, "pivots": [], "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms" }