{ "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register", "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/model-makers-metal-and-plastic/", "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": "Model Makers, Metal and Plastic", "soc_code": "51-4061", "category": "Production", "us_employment": 2610, "median_annual_wage": 63340 }, "verdict": "EXPOSED", "risk_resistance": 50, "contested": false, "near_boundary": false, "dimensions": { "task_resistance": 13, "embodiment": 17, "liability_shield": 1, "trust_premium": 7, "judgment_accountability": 12 }, "reasoning": { "task_resistance": "Setting up a Bridgeport, indicating stock to a thou, hand-scraping a mating surface and dressing a scale model's compound curves still needs a person at the machine — but a large slice of your old work (making a one-off housing, a proof-of-concept bracket, a foundry pattern) now leaves the shop as an STL file to a printer or a 5-axis CNC, which is why this sits at 13 and not 17.", "embodiment": "You work standing at lathes, mills, surface grinders and sanders with chips, coolant, solvents and 3D-printer resins around you, fitting and reworking parts by feel on stock that never arrives twice the same — the only thing keeping it off the top of the band is that the shop is climate-controlled and you aren't crawling through a plant or up a structure.", "liability_shield": "No state licence, no stamp, no certification gates model-making work; the engineer who signed the drawing owns the design and the QC inspector signs off the part, so nothing legally requires a specific credentialed human to have made it.", "trust_premium": "Engineering and design teams come back to the model maker who reads intent past the drawing and says 'that wall won't hold at .020' before the part is cut, and that standing is real inside one company — but the work is bought as a part on a job number, transfers to whoever else can hold tolerance, and no outside customer knows your name.", "judgment_accountability": "You choose fixturing, machining sequence, stock allowance and where to deviate from a drawing that can't actually be built, and a wrong call scraps expensive material or sends a flawed prototype into testing — but a designer or engineer reviews the result and the stakes are schedule and cost, not safety, which caps this below the top band." }, "rationale": "The core of this job — reading engineering drawings and turning metal or plastic stock into a working prototype on lathes, mills, grinders, and by hand fitting — is physical work in a shop that no current robot does end-to-end. The real pressure isn't LLMs, it's CAD/CAM and additive manufacturing: parts that once required a skilled model maker's hands are now printed or cut from a solid model, and design iteration happens in software before anything is made. There is no license, no signature requirement, and the buyer is an internal engineering team rather than a client paying for a relationship, so the moats are almost entirely craft and embodiment.", "outlook": "A small and shrinking occupation that survives as a hybrid role: fewer pure hand model makers, more people who program the machines, print the part, and hand-fit the last thousandth.", "what_would_raise_it": { "levers": [ { "dimension": "task_resistance", "change": "Task-mix shift: as CAD/CAM and printing absorb the geometry-reproduction tier, the surviving work is the tier printers cannot do — hand-fitting mating surfaces, tolerance chasing on non-printable materials, tooling/fixture fabrication, and salvaging designs that fail first-article inspection. Watch for shop job postings that drop 'manual mill/lathe production' and foreground 'prototype problem-solving, first-article rework, fixture design'.", "plausibility": "already happening", "would_add": 3 }, { "dimension": "embodiment", "change": "Near ceiling already at 17. The only realistic route up is a shift of the work mix toward one-off, non-repeatable setups in unstructured shop space (repair of legacy tooling, oversized or mixed-material assemblies) where no fixturing exists for a robot cell to reference.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 2 }, { "dimension": "liability_shield", "change": "Displacement of the shield from the person to the artifact: FAA/ASME-style requirements where a prototype or master model used for airworthiness or pressure-vessel qualification must be fabricated and dimensionally verified under a named, qualified individual (cf. NADCAP special-process operator certification, AS9102 first-article reports signed by an identified operator). Also ITAR/defense work where a cleared US person must physically perform the build. This raises certification-and-signature weight, not personal tort liability — realistic move is small.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 3 }, { "dimension": "judgment_accountability", "change": "If the role formally owns first-article disposition — authority to reject a design as unmanufacturable, to call a use-as-is versus scrap decision, and to sign the AS9102 or PPAP dimensional report — the consequential call sits with the model maker rather than the design engineer. Watch for shops that give model makers named sign-off on first-article inspection reports.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 3 } ], "ceiling_note": "No plausible route to a meaningful trust premium: the buyer is an internal engineering team optimizing cost and lead time, not a client paying for a named human's hands. There is no licensing body and no realistic prospect of one for a 2,610-worker production occupation. Even with every lever above, this stays a craft-and-embodiment moat that erodes as additive manufacturing widens its material and tolerance envelope." }, "adjudication": null, "employment_history": { "points": [ { "y": 2017, "emp": 5820, "wage": 53670 }, { "y": 2018, "emp": 5210, "wage": 56130 }, { "y": 2019, "emp": 4300, "wage": 57020 }, { "y": 2020, "emp": 3400, "wage": 54780 }, { "y": 2021, "emp": 3690, "wage": 55630 }, { "y": 2022, "emp": 3350, "wage": 57620 }, { "y": 2023, "emp": 2840, "wage": 64190 }, { "y": 2024, "emp": 3230, "wage": 62700 }, { "y": 2025, "emp": 2610, "wage": 63340 } ], "from": 2017, "to": 2025, "change_pct": -55.2, "comparable_from": 2019, "spans_soc_revision": true }, "pivots": [ { "slug": "industrial-machinery-mechanics", "title": "Industrial Machinery Mechanics", "verdict": "SAFE", "risk_resistance": 67, "median_wage": 64520, "overlap": 78, "skills_to_close": [ "Installation", "Equipment Maintenance", "Repairing", "Troubleshooting" ] }, { "slug": "sheet-metal-workers", "title": "Sheet Metal Workers", "verdict": "SAFE", "risk_resistance": 67, "median_wage": 61800, "overlap": 77, "skills_to_close": [ "Installation", "Instructing", "Service Orientation", "Management of Personnel Resources" ] }, { "slug": "refractory-materials-repairers-except-brickmasons", "title": "Refractory Materials Repairers, Except Brickmasons", "verdict": "EXPOSED", "risk_resistance": 65, "median_wage": 61290, "overlap": 76, "skills_to_close": [ "Service Orientation", "Instructing", "Social Perceptiveness" ] } ], "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms" }