{ "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register", "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/pest-control-workers/", "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": "Pest Control Workers", "soc_code": "37-2021", "category": "Facilities", "us_employment": 102620, "median_annual_wage": 45250 }, "verdict": "SAFE", "risk_resistance": 68, "contested": false, "near_boundary": false, "dimensions": { "task_resistance": 16, "embodiment": 18, "liability_shield": 12, "trust_premium": 10, "judgment_accountability": 12 }, "reasoning": { "task_resistance": "The diagnostic core — reading a rub mark on a joist, following a mud tube to a hidden mudsill, judging whether frass under a door frame is drywood termite or carpenter ant — requires a body in a 24-inch crawlspace with a flashlight and a probe awl, and only the reporting and routing wrapped around it has been digitised, which is why this sits at 16 rather than a clean 18-20.", "embodiment": "An 18 reflects that essentially every billable minute happens in someone else's uncontrolled space: attics over 120°F, crawlspaces with standing water and live knob-and-tube, ladders to roofline wasp nests, drilling and rodding slab foundations, hauling a 50-lb B&G sprayer through a cluttered garage — conditions where no fixed-mount or wheeled system can operate.", "liability_shield": "State pesticide applicator licensing under FIFRA Section 4 with category exams, CEUs, and revocation authority means a named human is legally accountable for every label deviation and every WDI/NPMA-33 report a lender relies on, but it lands at 12 not 17 because unlicensed technicians can legally work under a certified applicator's supervision and much of the license risk sits with the company's business license, not the individual in the truck.", "trust_premium": "Recurring quarterly accounts and the fact that homeowners let you into their attic and around their pets build genuine repeat relationships, but at 10 the work is still largely brand-and-price-driven — customers hire Terminix or the local company, tolerate whichever tech is dispatched, and rarely request one by name the way they would a hairstylist or a family physician.", "judgment_accountability": "Calls like whether a $4,000 termite treatment or spot treatment is warranted, whether to declare visible evidence on a report that can kill a closing, and how to treat around an infant's room or a beehive under IPM rules are real discretion with money and health on the line — held to 12 because the pesticide label is federal law and functionally scripts dose, site, and re-entry interval for you." }, "rationale": "The job is crawling under houses, up into attics, and along foundation lines to find termite mud tubes, rodent runways, and moisture damage, then mixing and applying regulated pesticides by hand — none of which current robotics can do in a stranger's cluttered basement. State pesticide applicator licensing and the legal weight of a signed wood-destroying-insect report for a real estate closing put a liable human name on the work. AI erodes the paperwork and dispatch layer: route optimization, service reports, treatment-plan templates, and call-center scheduling are already automating.", "outlook": "Demand holds or grows with warming climates and urban density; the trade's back office shrinks to AI while field technicians with termite certification, fumigation categories, and exclusion skills capture the wage growth.", "what_would_raise_it": { "levers": [ { "dimension": "liability_shield", "change": "EPA/state lead-agency rules tightening the certified-applicator supervision ratio — e.g. state pesticide boards requiring a certified applicator physically on-site (not just 'available by phone') for every restricted-use application, plus fumigation rules (structural fumigation with sulfuryl fluoride already requires a named certified fumigator-in-charge per label). Extension of the named-individual-in-charge model from fumigation to termiticide soil treatment and rodenticide bait station placement would deepen personal liability.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 4 }, { "dimension": "liability_shield", "change": "Lender/title-industry hardening of the WDI report: Fannie Mae, VA, or state real-estate commissions requiring the NPMA-33 (or state termite form) be signed by a licensed inspector who personally entered the crawlspace and attic, with an explicit bar on reports generated from photos, drone/camera footage, or AI image analysis. Errors-and-omissions carriers for inspection firms adding the same exclusion would do it faster than any regulator.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 3 }, { "dimension": "judgment_accountability", "change": "Task-mix shift plus regulatory weight on the resistance/IPM call: as bed bug and German cockroach pyrethroid resistance and rodenticide restrictions (California AB 1788 second-generation anticoagulant ban, similar bills elsewhere) narrow chemical options, the consequential decision moves from 'spray per template' to choosing among constrained non-chemical and rotation strategies, with the applicator's name on the decision. School IPM statutes that require a designated IPM coordinator to authorize any application on school grounds already put this call on a named person.", "plausibility": "already happening", "would_add": 3 }, { "dimension": "task_resistance", "change": "Genuine two-tier structure: if dispatch, routing, report drafting, and recurring-account scheduling automate fully, the residual role is diagnostic — distinguishing subterranean from drywood termite damage, tracing moisture sources, identifying structural conducive conditions — which is the tier robotics and vision models handle worst in cluttered, dark, variable-geometry spaces. Watch for whether firms redefine the route tech job around inspection and diagnosis rather than cutting headcount.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 2 }, { "dimension": "trust_premium", "change": "Narrow route only: residential customers with children, pets, or chemical-sensitivity concerns paying for a named technician who explains and documents what was applied. Real but small, and it is a preference for a specific person rather than for humans over machines — it does not scale to commercial accounts, which buy on price and compliance paperwork.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 2 } ], "ceiling_note": "Already near the practical ceiling for this occupation; the physical and licensing moats are the score and they are close to maxed. The realistic threat is not displacement but headcount compression — larger route densities per technician from AI dispatch and remote monitoring (connected rodent traps, termite sensor stations) meaning fewer workers doing the same protected work. High dimension scores do not prevent that, and no lever here addresses it." }, "adjudication": null, "employment_history": { "points": [ { "y": 2017, "emp": 75130, "wage": 34370 }, { "y": 2018, "emp": 77300, "wage": 35610 }, { "y": 2019, "emp": 79450, "wage": 37330 }, { "y": 2020, "emp": 79560, "wage": 37820 }, { "y": 2021, "emp": 85370, "wage": 37540 }, { "y": 2022, "emp": 91160, "wage": 38310 }, { "y": 2023, "emp": 93760, "wage": 43470 }, { "y": 2024, "emp": 96110, "wage": 44730 }, { "y": 2025, "emp": 102620, "wage": 45250 } ], "from": 2017, "to": 2025, "change_pct": 36.6, "comparable_from": 2019, "spans_soc_revision": true }, "pivots": [], "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms" }