{ "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register", "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/marine-engineers-and-naval-architects/", "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": "Marine Engineers and Naval Architects", "soc_code": "17-2121", "category": "Engineering", "us_employment": 8250, "median_annual_wage": 112230 }, "verdict": "EXPOSED", "risk_resistance": 54, "contested": false, "near_boundary": false, "dimensions": { "task_resistance": 11, "embodiment": 10, "liability_shield": 11, "trust_premium": 8, "judgment_accountability": 14 }, "reasoning": { "task_resistance": "Hull form optimization, hydrostatic and intact/damage stability runs, resistance-powering estimates and weight books are already parametric and largely tool-generated, but shipyard build oversight, sea trial instrumentation and troubleshooting, docking surveys and reverse-engineering legacy machinery on ships with no as-built drawings still require a person on the plating — a roughly even split, which is why it sits at 11 and not in the resistant band with field-only engineering roles.", "embodiment": "Most weeks are at a workstation in a design office or NAVSEA code, but the job periodically puts you in drydock, in tanks and voids during survey, on inclining experiments and on builder's/acceptance trials at sea — real confined-space and shipboard exposure, though not the daily uncontrolled-environment work of a marine surveyor or engineering officer, hence 10 rather than 15.", "liability_shield": "Approval submittals to ABS/DNV and USCG, and structural or stability calculations released under a PE stamp, place named personal accountability on an individual engineer, but a large share of the workforce — federal civilian naval architects and shipyard design staff working under an approved quality system and industrial exemptions — practices without a licence, which pulls this to 11 instead of the 16+ of professions where no licence means no work.", "trust_premium": "Owners, class societies and program offices buy calculated compliance and drawings that a reviewer checks against rules, not your personality; the 8 reflects genuine repeat relationships with class surveyors, port engineers and fleet owners on refit and new-build programs where knowing the vessel's history has value, but a competitor firm can take the contract on price and schedule.", "judgment_accountability": "You decide whether a damaged-stability case is acceptable, whether a weld or scantling deficiency found during construction is a repair or a redesign, what margins to carry on a first-in-class hull, and whether a vessel is fit for trials — calls made with incomplete data where being wrong sinks ships, which is why this is 14 even though the rulebooks (SOLAS, class rules, Subchapter requirements) constrain the envelope." }, "rationale": "Much of the day is CAD modeling, hydrostatic and stability calculations, weight estimates, resistance/powerplant sizing, specification writing and class-rule compliance checks — all of which are increasingly generated or pre-checked by parametric tools plus AI, and naval architecture already runs on heavy computational automation. What resists is the physical side: shipyard construction oversight, sea trials, damage surveys, machinery troubleshooting aboard vessels, and the signed engineering judgment that a hull or propulsion arrangement is safe and class-approvable. Modal worker here is a design-office engineer at a shipyard, design firm, or Navy/NAVSEA organization, where PE stamps, ABS/USCG approval submittals, and personal accountability for safety cases anchor the role.", "outlook": "The design-calculation and drafting tier thins out sharply while stamped approvals, shipyard oversight, and trials work hold; expect fewer junior seats and a field that concentrates around licensed, yard-facing engineers.", "what_would_raise_it": { "levers": [ { "dimension": "liability_shield", "change": "USCG/ABS explicitly requiring a named licensed PE (or ABS-recognized responsible engineer) signature and traceable human review on stability letters, damage-stability and structural calculations where any part was machine-generated — the Subchapter M towing-vessel and Subchapter L small-passenger-vessel plan-review regimes already route approvals through named submitters, and the post-Conception (SUV) NPRMs tightened plan-approval accountability. A parallel exists in NAVSEA's Technical Warrant Holder system, where a single named warrant holder personally owns a technical authority decision; extending warrant-holder countersignature to AI-derived design products would formalize it.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 4 }, { "dimension": "liability_shield", "change": "Insurer/P&I club and class-society conditions on cover requiring documented licensed-engineer verification of software-generated hull girder and stability outputs after a casualty traced to an unverified automated calculation — IACS UR E26/E27 cyber rules show class already willing to write software-provenance requirements into class notation.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 2 }, { "dimension": "task_resistance", "change": "Task-mix shift: this occupation genuinely has two tiers. If parametric/AI tooling absorbs the CAD production, weight books, resistance estimates and rule-check passes, the residual role concentrates on novel-arrangement safety cases, alternative-design-and-arrangement submittals under SOLAS II-2/17, ammonia and hydrogen fuel risk assessments under IGF Code alternative design approval, and reconciling as-built deviation with approved drawings — work with no verified precedent corpus.", "plausibility": "already happening", "would_add": 3 }, { "dimension": "embodiment", "change": "If shipyard schedule pressure and the shortage of surveyors keep pushing design engineers into on-site duty — construction oversight, weld and alignment disputes, inclining experiments, sea trials, damage surveys and grounding/allision investigations — the share of the day that is unpredictable-environment physical work rises. Class-society remote-survey expansion pushes the other way, so this only holds if remote survey stays limited to routine periodic items.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 3 }, { "dimension": "judgment_accountability", "change": "Naval and commercial adoption of ammonia, methanol, hydrogen and battery-hybrid propulsion places consequential calls (bunkering arrangement, toxic-release siting, thermal-runaway containment) under genuine ambiguity with thin rule coverage, so the engineer owns the risk-acceptance decision rather than applying a rule.", "plausibility": "already happening", "would_add": 3 } ], "ceiling_note": "No plausible route to a higher trust_premium: buyers are shipyards, owners and government programs procuring on price, schedule and class approval — none of them pay a premium for human authorship as such, only for a signature that satisfies a regulator or underwriter. That value belongs in liability_shield, not trust. Also note liability_shield and task_resistance here partly trade off: the same class-society digitalization that could mandate human countersignature is also building remote survey and automated rule-check pipelines." }, "adjudication": null, "employment_history": { "points": [ { "y": 2017, "emp": 10960, "wage": 90970 }, { "y": 2018, "emp": 11350, "wage": 92560 }, { "y": 2019, "emp": 11360, "wage": 92400 }, { "y": 2020, "emp": 8700, "wage": 95440 }, { "y": 2021, "emp": 7380, "wage": 93370 }, { "y": 2022, "emp": 7450, "wage": 96910 }, { "y": 2023, "emp": 9960, "wage": 100270 }, { "y": 2024, "emp": 8440, "wage": 105670 }, { "y": 2025, "emp": 8250, "wage": 112230 } ], "from": 2017, "to": 2025, "change_pct": -24.7, "comparable_from": 2019, "spans_soc_revision": true }, "pivots": [ { "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": 74, "skills_to_close": [] }, { "slug": "electrical-and-electronics-repairers-powerhouse-substation-and-relay", "title": "Electrical and Electronics Repairers, Powerhouse, Substation, and Relay", "verdict": "SAFE", "risk_resistance": 68, "median_wage": 103020, "overlap": 67, "skills_to_close": [ "Repairing", "Equipment Maintenance", "Equipment Selection", "Troubleshooting" ] }, { "slug": "construction-managers", "title": "Construction Managers", "verdict": "EXPOSED", "risk_resistance": 65, "median_wage": 114990, "overlap": 64, "skills_to_close": [ "Negotiation", "Management of Financial Resources", "Management of Personnel Resources", "Management of Material Resources" ] } ], "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms" }