{ "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register", "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/pourers-and-casters-metal/", "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": "Pourers and Casters, Metal", "soc_code": "51-4052", "category": "Production", "us_employment": 4560, "median_annual_wage": 51810 }, "verdict": "EXPOSED", "risk_resistance": 40, "contested": false, "near_boundary": false, "dimensions": { "task_resistance": 13, "embodiment": 17, "liability_shield": 2, "trust_premium": 2, "judgment_accountability": 6 }, "reasoning": { "task_resistance": "Hand-ladling a 200-lb bull ladle into odd-geometry sand molds, skimming dross by eye, and judging pour rate off the fluidity of a specific alloy heat is not yet codified for a robot in a 12-order job shop, but tilt-pour machines, autopour units on green-sand lines, and continuous casters have already taken the repeat-volume work — which is why this sits at 13 rather than 17.", "embodiment": "You work within arm's length of metal at 2,600°F in leathers and a face shield, walking uneven foundry floor between molds, handling shanks, tapping cupolas, and reacting to steam explosions and runouts — an uncontrolled thermal environment that only stops short of 20 because the pour itself happens at a fixed station rather than out in the field.", "liability_shield": "No state licenses a pourer; the plant's furnace and crane certifications, OSHA 1910.252 compliance, and any foundry-engineering sign-off sit with the supervisor and the metallurgist, so a bad heat becomes a scrap ticket rather than your personal legal exposure.", "trust_premium": "Castings ship with a heat number, not your name, and the buyer's relationship is with the foundry's sales and quality people — the 2 rather than 0 reflects only that shop foremen learn which pourers they trust with the tricky nickel-alloy jobs.", "judgment_accountability": "Pour temperature, alloy charge, and mold sequence come off the job ticket and the pyrometer, and you call it when the metal looks wrong or a mold is unsafe to pour, but those are in-the-moment shop-floor decisions with a supervisor and a metallurgist above you rather than ambiguous high-stakes calls you own." }, "rationale": "Nothing in this job is text or screen work, so language AI barely touches it — the threat is mechanical, not conversational. Automated pouring cells, robotic ladles, and continuous-casting lines already replace manual pourers in high-volume foundries; what survives is short-run, odd-geometry, and repair-oriented casting in small job shops where fixturing a robot costs more than the order. No license protects the role and no customer pays for a relationship with the pourer, so the only real moat is the messy, hot, variable physical environment.", "outlook": "Headcount keeps shrinking as high-volume pouring is mechanized and casting work moves offshore; the surviving jobs are in small job shops and on melt decks where a human reads the heat and fixes what goes wrong.", "what_would_raise_it": { "levers": [ { "dimension": "embodiment", "change": "Continued concentration of remaining work in short-run, one-off, and repair casting (art bronze, ornamental restoration, replacement parts for obsolete equipment) where fixturing a robotic ladle for a single mold costs more than the order; each job has different mold geometry, gate placement, and pour rate judged by eye and sound. Watch whether small job-shop foundries (under ~20 employees) hold share as high-volume lines fully automate.", "plausibility": "already happening", "would_add": 2 }, { "dimension": "task_resistance", "change": "Task-mix shift: this occupation genuinely has two tiers — repetitive production pouring versus judgment pouring (reading melt surface, skim decisions, deciding to scrap a heat, adjusting pour speed as a mold vents). If the production tier is automated out, the residual headcount is the tier that requires reading an uninstrumented melt in real time.", "plausibility": "already happening", "would_add": 3 }, { "dimension": "judgment_accountability", "change": "Formalization of the pourer's authority to abort a heat or reject a mold under safety rules — e.g. an OSHA molten-metal emphasis program or an insurer-required written stop-work authority naming the pour operator (parallel to steel-industry mutual insurer loss-control requirements after runout/explosion claims). Would make the call a documented, owned decision rather than an informal one.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 3 }, { "dimension": "liability_shield", "change": "Aerospace/defense and nuclear casting already runs under NADCAP AC7004/AS9100 and NAVSEA tech pubs; a further requirement that a named, certified melt/pour operator sign the heat record for safety-critical castings — rather than a metallurgist signing off downstream — would attach personal certification to the pour itself. Watch NADCAP heat-treat/casting audit criteria revisions.", "plausibility": "unlikely", "would_add": 3 }, { "dimension": "trust_premium", "change": "Only route is art and architectural bronze, where the foundry (and sometimes the named pour crew) is part of provenance for editioned sculpture. This is a few hundred workers at most and does not generalize to industrial casting.", "plausibility": "unlikely", "would_add": 1 } ], "ceiling_note": "Realistic ceiling is roughly the low-50s, and it is almost entirely embodiment plus task-mix residue, not institutional protection. The mechanism that shrinks this occupation — robotic ladles and continuous casting in high-volume plants — is capital-cost driven and unaffected by anything a licensing board could do. A higher score here would coexist with a much smaller headcount: the surviving job gets harder to automate while there are fewer of them." }, "adjudication": null, "employment_history": { "points": [ { "y": 2017, "emp": 7600, "wage": 38210 }, { "y": 2018, "emp": 7850, "wage": 37730 }, { "y": 2019, "emp": 8010, "wage": 38620 }, { "y": 2020, "emp": 7200, "wage": 40170 }, { "y": 2021, "emp": 6570, "wage": 45850 }, { "y": 2022, "emp": 6070, "wage": 45070 }, { "y": 2023, "emp": 5460, "wage": 48690 }, { "y": 2024, "emp": 5830, "wage": 48940 }, { "y": 2025, "emp": 4560, "wage": 51810 } ], "from": 2017, "to": 2025, "change_pct": -40, "comparable_from": 2019, "spans_soc_revision": true }, "pivots": [ { "slug": "refractory-materials-repairers-except-brickmasons", "title": "Refractory Materials Repairers, Except Brickmasons", "verdict": "EXPOSED", "risk_resistance": 65, "median_wage": 61290, "overlap": 86, "skills_to_close": [ "Repairing", "Equipment Selection", "Instructing", "Writing" ] }, { "slug": "welders-cutters-solderers-and-brazers", "title": "Welders, Cutters, Solderers, and Brazers", "verdict": "EXPOSED", "risk_resistance": 62, "median_wage": 53750, "overlap": 83, "skills_to_close": [ "Installation" ] }, { "slug": "refuse-and-recyclable-material-collectors", "title": "Refuse and Recyclable Material Collectors", "verdict": "EXPOSED", "risk_resistance": 55, "median_wage": 49690, "overlap": 83, "skills_to_close": [ "Writing" ] } ], "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms" }