EXPOSED
The work is hands-on: racking and unracking parts, mixing and titrating bath chemistry, hanging anodes, adjusting rectifier current, pulling parts for thickness and adhesion checks, and cleaning tanks and filters — none of which language models touch. The real threat is not AI but conventional automation: fully automated hoist lines with in-line bath analyzers and closed-loop current control already run with fewer tenders, and AI-assisted process monitoring accelerates that trend. Judgment exists (diagnosing burnt deposits, pitting, poor coverage) but sits with a thin senior tier; the modal tender loads, monitors, and inspects.
Mixed — a routine tier and a judgment tier. Racking geometry for odd parts, Hull cell tests, and hand-touchup of blistered areas still need a person on the line, but automated hoist programming, in-line X-ray fluorescence thickness gauges, and closed-loop rectifier control have already absorbed the plating cycle itself — that split of manual setup against automated running is what puts it at 12 rather than 16.
Hands-on in uncontrolled environments. You are lifting racks and barrels over hot acid and cyanide tanks, in a respirator or face shield, handling chromic acid and caustic strip solutions in a fume-hooded bay where floors are wet and slippery — 15 rather than 18 because it is a fixed indoor plant, not weather or confined-space work.
No licence, no signature requirement. No licence gates the job; RCRA hazardous-waste handling and OSHA hexavalent-chromium exposure limits bind the facility and its EHS manager, and the plating-line supervisor signs off on the wastewater discharge logs, not the tender who filled them out.
Anonymous artifact production. Plated parts leave the shop as a lot number with a certificate of conformance to an ASTM or Mil-spec thickness; the customer's buyer never learns which operator racked them, and the shop is switchable on price and turnaround.
Meaningful discretion. Reading a burnt deposit as too much current versus low metal concentration, or deciding whether a hazy nickel batch gets stripped and rerun, is real diagnostic discretion — but the bath is run to a written control chart with addition rates specified by the vendor's tech sheet, and the escalation goes to the plating chemist, which keeps it at 7.
Riggers SAFE
Has AI actually changed your work?