{
  "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register",
  "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/models/",
  "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": "Models",
    "soc_code": "41-9012",
    "category": "Sales",
    "us_employment": 3780,
    "median_annual_wage": 48470
  },
  "verdict": "COOKED",
  "risk_resistance": 31,
  "contested": false,
  "near_boundary": false,
  "dimensions": {
    "task_resistance": 7,
    "embodiment": 13,
    "liability_shield": 1,
    "trust_premium": 7,
    "judgment_accountability": 3
  },
  "reasoning": {
    "task_resistance": "Holding a pose under strobes for an e-commerce still is now the single most reproducible thing a diffusion model does, and the reason this sits at 7 rather than 3 is the residual work that can't be rendered — walking a 20-look show on a live runway, standing for a fitter pinning a sample at a size-8 block, and appearing at a store opening where the crowd is the point.",
    "embodiment": "Fit modeling means your actual measurements are the tool and you spend hours on a fitting stand in an unheated sample room; runway and location shoots put you outdoors, on cobblestones in unbroken shoes, changing backstage on a schedule you don't set — that's real physical exposure, but it stops short of 17+ because nobody is asking you to carry loads or operate equipment.",
    "liability_shield": "There is no state license, no board, no continuing-education requirement to call yourself a model; agency representation is a contract, not a credential, and the brand's legal exposure for the campaign sits with the client and photographer, not with you.",
    "trust_premium": "A 7 reflects the real but narrow relationship layer — a booker who knows your fit history, a designer who rebooks you every season, a photographer who works fast with you — while acknowledging that catalog clients hire off a digital and would not notice a substitution, unlike the top tier where the name on the contract is the licensed asset.",
    "judgment_accountability": "The call sheet, stylist, art director, and photographer decide the look, the pose, and the frame; your discretion is micro-adjustment within someone else's direction, and no consequential decision rests on your read of an ambiguous situation."
  },
  "rationale": "The modal model's deliverable is a still image for catalog, e-commerce, or advertising — and that image is exactly what generative models now produce at usable commercial quality, without call sheets, day rates, or travel. What survives is physical: live runway and trunk shows, fit modeling on real garments during sampling, in-person brand activations, and the small tier of named talent whose recognizable identity is the product being licensed. No license, no sign-off requirement, and almost no decision authority means there is no regulatory or accountability moat to slow substitution.",
  "outlook": "Within ten years most catalog and e-commerce modeling work is generated rather than shot, and paid bookings concentrate into live events, fit work, and a smaller set of licensable named faces.",
  "what_would_raise_it": {
    "levers": [
      {
        "dimension": "liability_shield",
        "change": "AI-disclosure and consent statutes that make brands legally exposed for synthetic bodies: California AB 2602 (2024) already voids contracts allowing digital replicas without specific consent, and the proposed federal NO FAKES Act plus New York's fashion-worker and digital-replica rules point at a regime where any AI-generated human likeness in an ad requires a documented, consented, compensated real person of record. If the EU AI Act's synthetic-content labeling plus a mandatory 'synthetic model' disclosure on e-commerce imagery lands, brands may keep a signed human release in the chain for every campaign image.",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 4
      },
      {
        "dimension": "trust_premium",
        "change": "Retailer or platform policy that bans undisclosed AI imagery and markets 'real bodies only' — Levi's 2023 backlash over AI models is the template, and a size-inclusivity or advertising-standards rule (UK ASA-style, or a Fashion Workers Act amendment) requiring that garment fit be shown on a real wearer would make human-shot editorial a paid brand signal rather than a cost line.",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 4
      },
      {
        "dimension": "embodiment",
        "change": "Task-mix shift toward the irreducibly physical: fit/sampling modeling on live pattern iterations, runway, and in-person activations become a larger share of remaining paid days as flat catalog work is absorbed. This raises the score for the surviving job without any new law, but it also shrinks headcount.",
        "plausibility": "already happening",
        "would_add": 3
      },
      {
        "dimension": "task_resistance",
        "change": "Fit modeling as a distinct judgment tier — verbal feedback on drape, seam pressure, and range of motion feeding pattern correction is a sensor-and-report function generative models cannot supply; if brands formalize fit-model panels with standardized measurement contracts, that tier is defensible.",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 3
      }
    ],
    "ceiling_note": "Even with every lever, this stays low-to-mid: the modal deliverable is a still image, the surviving work concentrates into a small named-talent and fit-model tier, and 3,780 counted workers can shrink faster than any dimension rises. Disclosure law protects likeness rights, not the volume of bookings."
  },
  "adjudication": null,
  "employment_history": {
    "points": [
      {
        "y": 2017,
        "emp": 3710,
        "wage": 22900
      },
      {
        "y": 2018,
        "emp": 3310,
        "wage": 23770
      },
      {
        "y": 2019,
        "emp": 2320,
        "wage": 28350
      },
      {
        "y": 2020,
        "emp": 2350,
        "wage": 31910
      },
      {
        "y": 2021,
        "emp": 2000,
        "wage": null
      },
      {
        "y": 2022,
        "emp": 2070,
        "wage": 43130
      },
      {
        "y": 2023,
        "emp": 3090,
        "wage": 47430
      },
      {
        "y": 2024,
        "emp": 5350,
        "wage": 89990
      },
      {
        "y": 2025,
        "emp": 3780,
        "wage": 48470
      }
    ],
    "from": 2017,
    "to": 2025,
    "change_pct": 1.9,
    "comparable_from": 2019,
    "spans_soc_revision": true
  },
  "pivots": [
    {
      "slug": "refuse-and-recyclable-material-collectors",
      "title": "Refuse and Recyclable Material Collectors",
      "verdict": "EXPOSED",
      "risk_resistance": 55,
      "median_wage": 49690,
      "overlap": 72,
      "skills_to_close": [
        "Operation and Control",
        "Operations Monitoring",
        "Equipment Maintenance",
        "Repairing"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms"
}