EXPOSED
The daily work — loading molds, setting temperature and pressure parameters, starting cycles, pulling parts, trimming flash, gauging dimensions, logging scrap — happens on a shop floor with hot metal and heavy tooling, which language AI cannot touch. The real threat is older and more proven: all-electric presses with recipe libraries, automated part-removal robots, conveyor takeoff, and vision-based inspection already let one technician tend cells that used to need three tenders. Setup judgment (diagnosing short shots, flash, warpage, sink marks and dialing in the fix) is the tier that persists; pure tending is the tier that keeps thinning.
Mixed — a routine tier and a judgment tier. Mold changes, pulling a hot sprue, clamping a die and re-shimming a gate are still hand work, but the tending half of the job — watch cycle, take part, put in bin, hit reset — is already done by takeout robots and conveyors on new presses, which is why this sits at 11 rather than up with millwrights.
Hands-on in uncontrolled environments. You work within arm's reach of 400°F barrels, 200-ton clamp forces and molten metal, breaking loose stuck cores and cleaning vents on your knees with the press open — the environment is uncontrolled enough for 14, though it's a fixed machine in a known bay rather than a roof or a trench, which keeps it off 18.
No licence, no signature requirement. No state licence gates this work; a forklift or overhead-crane card and lockout/tagout training are employer requirements, not a credential that makes you personally answerable, and any part defect traces to the QA sign-off and the customer's PPAP, not your name.
Anonymous artifact production. The customer buys a dimensioned part in a bin and never learns who ran the press; the only relationship that matters is with the setup lead and the next shift, and that's transferable the day you leave.
Executes defined procedures on defined inputs. Most decisions are bounded by the job packet — the setup sheet gives barrel zones, cushion, hold pressure and cycle time, and the gauge either passes or you scrap the shot — so your discretion is real mainly in diagnosing why parts are short or flashing, which is troubleshooting inside known limits rather than an ambiguous call nobody else can make.
Machinists EXPOSED
Has AI actually changed your work?