{ "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register", "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/materials-scientists/", "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": "Materials Scientists", "soc_code": "19-2032", "category": "Science", "us_employment": 8470, "median_annual_wage": 117790 }, "verdict": "EXPOSED", "risk_resistance": 43, "contested": false, "near_boundary": false, "dimensions": { "task_resistance": 10, "embodiment": 11, "liability_shield": 3, "trust_premium": 7, "judgment_accountability": 12 }, "reasoning": { "task_resistance": "At 10, the split is real: composition screening, phase-diagram lookup, Arrhenius fits, and DSC/TGA curve deconvolution are already handed to ML surrogates and autoscript pipelines, while polishing and ion-milling a TEM lamella, deciding a XRD peak is texture rather than a second phase, and tracing a delamination back to a cure-cycle drift still need someone at the instrument — neither half dominates enough to push this to 7 or to 14.", "embodiment": "11 reflects that the fume hood, glovebox, furnace, and load frame are unavoidable — you mix slurries, sinter pellets, mount and etch cross-sections, and pull tensiles — but it is your own lab or a plant QA bay with known hazards and fixturing, not a refinery scaffold or a field failure site, which is what keeps it out of the 13+ band.", "liability_shield": "3 is right because nothing stops a chemistry PhD from specifying an alloy: there is no state licensure for materials scientists, and where a stamp is legally required — pressure vessels, structural members — a licensed PE or the ASME/AWS-certified inspector signs, not you, so ASM or NACE credentials read as resume weight rather than a legal gate.", "trust_premium": "7 covers the fact that a process engineer or supplier quality manager who has watched you call three failures correctly will route the fourth to you specifically, but the deliverable is a report, a spec revision, or a test certificate that any competent lab could reissue, and procurement will send the next coupon to whoever quotes fastest.", "judgment_accountability": "12 sits where it does because you decide whether a lot with borderline grain size ships, whether a substitution qualifies without full requalification, and whether a fractograph is fatigue or overload — calls with real cost and safety consequence — yet they are made inside ASTM/ISO test methods and a customer spec, and the release decision usually clears a design authority or quality board rather than resting on you alone." }, "rationale": "Much of the day — literature review, composition screening, DFT/FEA setup, statistical analysis of characterization data, technical report and patent drafting — is exactly what generative models and ML property-prediction systems (GNoME, MatterGen-style tools) now do at usable quality, and screening thousands of candidate compositions is where AI is strongest. What survives is bench-side: preparing and mounting samples, running and interpreting SEM/TEM/XRD/DSC output on messy real specimens, diagnosing why a production batch failed, and owning the recommendation that a material is fit for a real part. No license gates the work and buyers rarely pay for the individual relationship, so the moat is embodiment plus accountability for expensive material decisions.", "outlook": "Headcount stays small and flat while the job shifts from computational screening and write-ups toward lab execution, failure diagnosis, and manufacturing qualification.", "what_would_raise_it": { "levers": [ { "dimension": "task_resistance", "change": "As AI absorbs composition screening, literature review and simulation setup, the residual job concentrates on failure analysis of real specimens — fractography, contamination diagnosis on production batches, and reconciling characterization artifacts (XRD peak overlap, TEM sample-prep damage) against model predictions. This tier shift is visible already in aerospace/semiconductor labs where autonomous screening platforms feed human root-cause teams, and raises task_resistance without any new rule.", "plausibility": "already happening", "would_add": 4 }, { "dimension": "embodiment", "change": "If qualification regimes keep requiring physical coupon testing on the actual production lot — e.g. AMS/NADCAP audit rules and FAA/EASA material qualification requiring witnessed specimen preparation and destructive test, plus semiconductor fab requirements for on-tool cross-section work — the hands-on specimen and metrology fraction of the day stays load-bearing even as design work automates.", "plausibility": "already happening", "would_add": 3 }, { "dimension": "liability_shield", "change": "ASME BPVC Section IX and AWS weld/material qualifications already require a named responsible engineer to certify procedure qualification records; extension of PE-stamp requirements to material substitution and additive-manufacturing part qualification (NIST/ASTM F42 and ongoing state board debate over AM part certification) would put a personally liable signature on materials fitness calls. Also watch EU Construction Products Regulation and battery passport rules naming a responsible technical person for declared performance.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 5 }, { "dimension": "judgment_accountability", "change": "If insurers and OEMs require a named materials engineer of record for AI-proposed material substitutions — mirroring how aerospace primes already require a named cognizant engineer to disposition nonconformances (MRB authority) — and if AI-generated candidate materials must be dispositioned by that person before release, the role formally owns consequential ambiguous calls.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 4 }, { "dimension": "trust_premium", "change": "Narrow route only: expert-witness and independent failure-analysis work (product liability, battery fire and construction-defect litigation), where court admissibility under FRE 702 and Daubert requires a testifying human whose own methodology is examinable. This is a small slice of the occupation and will not lift the median role.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 2 } ], "ceiling_note": "No license gates the title and most materials scientists are salaried employees inside firms that buy outcomes, not individual relationships — so trust_premium has a hard low ceiling. Liability routes attach to a subset (pressure vessels, aerospace, construction products); a battery or thin-film researcher gains nothing from them." }, "adjudication": null, "employment_history": { "points": [ { "y": 2017, "emp": 7470, "wage": 99530 }, { "y": 2018, "emp": 7730, "wage": 99800 }, { "y": 2019, "emp": 6710, "wage": 96810 }, { "y": 2020, "emp": 6930, "wage": 99460 }, { "y": 2021, "emp": 6690, "wage": 100090 }, { "y": 2022, "emp": 7620, "wage": 104380 }, { "y": 2023, "emp": 8810, "wage": 106160 }, { "y": 2024, "emp": 8330, "wage": 104160 }, { "y": 2025, "emp": 8470, "wage": 117790 } ], "from": 2017, "to": 2025, "change_pct": 13.4, "comparable_from": 2019, "spans_soc_revision": true }, "pivots": [ { "slug": "nuclear-engineers", "title": "Nuclear Engineers", "verdict": "EXPOSED", "risk_resistance": 57, "median_wage": 133970, "overlap": 84, "skills_to_close": [ "Troubleshooting", "Technology Design", "Monitoring", "Operations Monitoring" ] }, { "slug": "architectural-and-engineering-managers", "title": "Architectural and Engineering Managers", "verdict": "EXPOSED", "risk_resistance": 56, "median_wage": 171270, "overlap": 80, "skills_to_close": [ "Management of Personnel Resources", "Time Management", "Coordination" ] }, { "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": 76, "skills_to_close": [ "Management of Material Resources", "Equipment Selection", "Management of Financial Resources", "Systems Analysis" ] } ], "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms" }