{ "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register", "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/lifeguards-ski-patrol-and-other-recreational-protective-service-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": "Lifeguards, Ski Patrol, and Other Recreational Protective Service Workers", "soc_code": "33-9092", "category": "Protective Service", "us_employment": 157550, "median_annual_wage": 33580 }, "verdict": "SAFE", "risk_resistance": 68, "contested": false, "near_boundary": false, "dimensions": { "task_resistance": 17, "embodiment": 19, "liability_shield": 8, "trust_premium": 11, "judgment_accountability": 13 }, "reasoning": { "task_resistance": "A drowning-detection camera can flag a swimmer on the bottom, but nothing else in the shift — the 20-yard approach swim, the spinal board extraction with a two-person roll, the toboggan belay down a mogul field, the chairlift evacuation rope work — has a digital substitute, which is why this sits at 17 rather than in the mixed band.", "embodiment": "You work in moving water, on ice, in whiteouts and 95-degree pool decks, and the environment is the hazard you are managing: 19 reflects that the rescue itself happens in the uncontrolled medium, with the only reason it isn't 20 being the fraction of hours spent scanning from a stand or checking chemical logs.", "liability_shield": "Lifeguard/CPR/AED and OEC or EMT-B certifications are legally required to occupy the post — health codes set guard-to-bather ratios — but they are short-course certificates renewed every 1-2 years, not a state licence with a personal practice you can lose and be sued over, so the patrol or aquatic operator absorbs the negligence claim, putting this at 8 rather than an RN's 14.", "trust_premium": "Patrons don't ask for you by name and rarely learn it, but season-pass skiers and swim-team regulars know the patrol shack faces, and enforcing closures or clearing a slide path depends on riders believing the person in the red jacket has skied that terrain — relationship as compliance tool, not as the product, hence 11.", "judgment_accountability": "Deciding to close a run for instability, calling for a helicopter versus a toboggan, or choosing to hold C-spine on a skier who insists he's fine are calls made in seconds with no supervisor present and real death exposure, but they run through protocol trees — OEC algorithms, avalanche hazard scales, EAP triggers — which keeps it at 13 instead of the 16+ of someone setting the protocol." }, "rationale": "The job is watching water and slopes with your own eyes and then physically entering them — swimming a limp swimmer to the deck, applying rescue breaths, sledding an injured skier down a run, setting avalanche charges. AI vision systems (drowning-detection cameras, avalanche forecasting models) are genuinely encroaching on the surveillance half of the work, but they can only page a human to do the extraction, and health codes plus insurers require certified bodies on duty in fixed ratios. The real pressure on this occupation is budget and seasonality, not software.", "outlook": "Headcount holds roughly flat with pool and resort capacity; AI surveillance may thin the number of chairs per pool while raising the value of the certified rescuer and medical responder who remains.", "what_would_raise_it": { "levers": [ { "dimension": "liability_shield", "change": "State/county health codes and pool codes (e.g., the CDC Model Aquatic Health Code, adopted piecemeal by states) being amended to fix minimum certified-lifeguard-per-bather ratios that explicitly cannot be reduced by installing drowning-detection camera systems — i.e., language stating AI surveillance supplements but does not substitute for staffed positions. Several jurisdictions have debated the reverse (allowing staffing credits for tech); a codified no-substitution rule would raise this materially.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 5 }, { "dimension": "liability_shield", "change": "Insurer requirements: aquatic-facility and ski-resort liability carriers (e.g., programs underwriting municipal pools, or the ski industry's captive insurers) conditioning coverage on documented certified-guard headcount and named patroller-in-charge for avalanche route decisions, so a named certified human signs the daily mitigation/opening log. Avalanche control blasting is already federally/state permitted to named licensed blasters — extending explicit personal sign-off to run-opening decisions would harden this.", "plausibility": "already happening", "would_add": 3 }, { "dimension": "judgment_accountability", "change": "Task-mix shift: if drowning-detection cameras and avalanche forecast models absorb continuous scanning, the residual role concentrates on the ambiguous calls — whether to close a run after a forecast disagrees with observed instability, triage among multiple casualties, whether to spinal-immobilize. Formal recognition of this via patrol-director sign-off requirements on open/close decisions (as in some resort avalanche safety plans) raises the score.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 4 }, { "dimension": "task_resistance", "change": "Same two-tier shift: the surveillance tier is the automatable one; extraction, packaging, sled evacuation, and on-slope patient care are not. Score is near ceiling already, so movement is small.", "plausibility": "already happening", "would_add": 1 }, { "dimension": "trust_premium", "change": "Parent- and school-driven demand: swim programs and camps advertising staffed guard ratios rather than camera coverage after a publicized camera-miss drowning. Weak lever — buyers here are municipalities and resorts buying compliance, not families buying humans.", "plausibility": "unlikely", "would_add": 2 } ], "ceiling_note": "task_resistance and embodiment are already near maximum; the realistic headroom is almost entirely in liability_shield, which is low only because certification requirements attach to staffing ratios rather than to a personally liable signature. The binding threat is budget cuts and seasonal contraction, which no dimension here measures." }, "adjudication": null, "employment_history": { "points": [ { "y": 2017, "emp": 145660, "wage": 21290 }, { "y": 2018, "emp": 144370, "wage": 22410 }, { "y": 2019, "emp": 143940, "wage": 23420 }, { "y": 2020, "emp": 113150, "wage": 25020 }, { "y": 2021, "emp": 114320, "wage": 25630 }, { "y": 2022, "emp": 107930, "wage": 27270 }, { "y": 2023, "emp": 123560, "wage": 30380 }, { "y": 2024, "emp": 143590, "wage": 33720 }, { "y": 2025, "emp": 157550, "wage": 33580 } ], "from": 2017, "to": 2025, "change_pct": 8.2, "comparable_from": 2019, "spans_soc_revision": true }, "pivots": [], "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms" }