{
  "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register",
  "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/magnetic-resonance-imaging-technologists/",
  "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": "Magnetic Resonance Imaging Technologists",
    "soc_code": "29-2035",
    "category": "Healthcare",
    "us_employment": 43390,
    "median_annual_wage": 95480
  },
  "verdict": "SAFE",
  "risk_resistance": 67,
  "contested": false,
  "near_boundary": true,
  "dimensions": {
    "task_resistance": 15,
    "embodiment": 17,
    "liability_shield": 12,
    "trust_premium": 12,
    "judgment_accountability": 11
  },
  "reasoning": {
    "task_resistance": "Zone IV screening, coil placement and pad-and-strap immobilization on a patient who can't hold still, IV gadolinium starts, and real-time decisions to re-run a motion-corrupted sequence are the bulk of the shift and none of them survive without hands on the patient — it's 15 rather than 18 because protocol selection, sequence parameter tuning, reconstruction, denoising and artifact detection are already being automated by vendor software.",
    "embodiment": "You spend the shift transferring patients onto the table, positioning heads and shoulders to millimeter tolerance inside a bore, wanding for shrapnel and pacemakers, and working in a 1.5T–3T fringe field where a dropped oxygen cylinder becomes a projectile; it's 17 not 20 only because the scan room is a fixed, controlled suite rather than a roadside or a home.",
    "liability_shield": "ARRT-MR or ARMRIT credentialing plus licensure in the majority of states, with your name on the MR safety screening form and the contrast administration record, means a ferromagnetic screening failure or a gadolinium extravasation lands on you personally — but it's 12, not 17, because a radiologist signs the diagnostic interpretation and the MR Medical Director owns the safety program above you.",
    "trust_premium": "A claustrophobic patient who tolerates 40 minutes in the bore does so because of how you talked them through it over the intercom, and repeat-scan rates track directly to that; it's 12 rather than 15 because patients typically meet you once, referred by name to the imaging center rather than to you.",
    "judgment_accountability": "You decide in the moment whether an implant with an unverifiable MR conditional label goes in the room, whether to abort a sequence for motion, and whether an unexpected finding warrants pulling the radiologist off the reading list — real calls with real stakes, but scored 11 because ACR safety guidance, protocol libraries and departmental contrast protocols pre-answer most of them."
  },
  "rationale": "The job is physical: screening patients for ferromagnetic implants, positioning bodies and coils to millimeter tolerance in a bore, starting IVs for gadolinium contrast, and talking anxious or claustrophobic patients through a 40-minute scan. AI is already eating the adjacent screen work — protocol selection, reconstruction and denoising, artifact flagging, scan-time reduction — which will raise throughput per tech and compress the number of techs needed per scanner, but it does not touch the bedside half of the shift. Certification (ARRT-MR or ARMRIT) plus state licensure in most states keeps a credentialed human on the hook for magnet-room safety, where a mistake is a projectile injury.",
  "outlook": "Demand for scans keeps rising and the bedside work stays human, but AI-accelerated acquisition means each tech runs more patients per shift — steady employment with productivity pressure rather than displacement.",
  "what_would_raise_it": {
    "levers": [
      {
        "dimension": "liability_shield",
        "change": "Universal state licensure for MRI personnel: currently only ~10-15 states license MR techs, and the federal CARE Bill (Consistent, Accuracy, Responsible Care for Everyone / RadCARE) has been reintroduced across multiple Congresses to require credentialing for personnel performing medical imaging reimbursed by Medicare. If enacted, or if The Joint Commission converts its MRI safety recommendations into a survey-scored requirement that a named ARRT-MR-credentialed MR Safety Officer/MR Safety Expert (per ACR Manual on MR Safety roles) personally sign off zone-IV access and implant clearance for every scan, the sign-and-be-liable layer hardens.",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 4
      },
      {
        "dimension": "liability_shield",
        "change": "CMS conditions of participation or a state DOH rule requiring a credentialed human to countersign AI-generated protocol selection, implant-conditionality determinations, and gadolinium dose calculations before the sequence runs — the same countersignature pattern already emerging in AI triage device labeling (FDA-cleared imaging AI is nearly all cleared as adjunct-with-human-review).",
        "plausibility": "already happening",
        "would_add": 3
      },
      {
        "dimension": "judgment_accountability",
        "change": "Formal absorption of MR Safety Officer duties into the staff tech role rather than a separate manager: as scanner throughput rises and implant density in the population grows (cardiac devices, neurostimulators, retained fragments), the residual job becomes conditional-implant adjudication, contrast-reaction response, and abort/continue calls on incidental findings and motion. If ABMRS certification (MRSO/MRSE) becomes an employer or accreditor requirement for the bedside tech, the role formally owns ambiguous calls.",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 3
      },
      {
        "dimension": "task_resistance",
        "change": "Task-mix shift is genuinely two-tiered here: if AI absorbs protocol selection, reconstruction, denoising and artifact flagging, the remaining shift is disproportionately screening interrogation, IV access on hard sticks, pediatric and claustrophobic coaching, and non-standard positioning — none of which current systems touch. Note this raises resistance per remaining worker while reducing headcount per scanner.",
        "plausibility": "already happening",
        "would_add": 2
      }
    ],
    "ceiling_note": "No plausible route to a higher trust premium: patients do not select or pay extra for a specific MRI tech, and referral flows through radiologist and payer, not the tech. Also, every liability and judgment gain here is per-worker, not per-headcount — AI-driven throughput gains compress techs per scanner even as the surviving role gets harder to automate. A safer job is compatible with fewer of them."
  },
  "adjudication": {
    "method": "two independent runs agreed on the verdict",
    "outcome": "corroborated",
    "run_totals": [
      67,
      68
    ],
    "run_verdicts": [
      "SAFE",
      "SAFE"
    ]
  },
  "employment_history": {
    "points": [
      {
        "y": 2017,
        "emp": 37490,
        "wage": 69930
      },
      {
        "y": 2018,
        "emp": 38540,
        "wage": 71670
      },
      {
        "y": 2019,
        "emp": 37900,
        "wage": 73410
      },
      {
        "y": 2020,
        "emp": 39270,
        "wage": 74690
      },
      {
        "y": 2021,
        "emp": 38070,
        "wage": 77360
      },
      {
        "y": 2022,
        "emp": 38380,
        "wage": 80090
      },
      {
        "y": 2023,
        "emp": 41340,
        "wage": 83740
      },
      {
        "y": 2024,
        "emp": 41530,
        "wage": 88180
      },
      {
        "y": 2025,
        "emp": 43390,
        "wage": 95480
      }
    ],
    "from": 2017,
    "to": 2025,
    "change_pct": 15.7,
    "comparable_from": 2019,
    "spans_soc_revision": true
  },
  "pivots": [],
  "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms"
}