{ "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register", "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/sociologists/", "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": "Sociologists", "soc_code": "19-3041", "category": "Science", "us_employment": 2260, "median_annual_wage": 106030 }, "verdict": "EXPOSED", "risk_resistance": 34, "contested": false, "near_boundary": true, "dimensions": { "task_resistance": 8, "embodiment": 6, "liability_shield": 2, "trust_premium": 7, "judgment_accountability": 11 }, "reasoning": { "task_resistance": "An 8 reflects the split in a sociologist's week: coding open-ended responses, running Stata/R models, writing literature reviews and journal drafts are now draft-quality machine output, while framing a researchable question about, say, neighborhood effects and defending a sampling design through IRB and reviewer 2 still requires a person who knows the discipline's arguments — that's mixed, not resistant.", "embodiment": "The 6 comes from fieldwork that some sociologists actually do — ethnographic observation in a school or shelter, in-person interviews, recruiting respondents at a site — but most days are laptop, dataset, and manuscript, so this sits just above desk-only rather than in the field-truck range.", "liability_shield": "No state licenses the title 'sociologist'; a PhD is a hiring credential, not a legal gate, and nothing in your survey report requires your signature the way a PE stamp or clinical license does — hence a 2 rather than zero, since IRB approval and university appointment still put a named human on the protocol.", "trust_premium": "A 7 covers the relationships that matter — repeat access to a community that lets you back in, a named PI a foundation program officer trusts with a grant — but the journal article is read and cited without regard to who wrote it, and survey respondents talk to the study, not to you.", "judgment_accountability": "An 11 is right because you decide what counts as a case, where to cut a coding scheme, and whether a finding about disparity is robust enough to publish — real discretion with reputational stakes — but peer review, co-authors, and IRB spread the consequences, and no one's liberty or life turns on the call." }, "rationale": "The daily output of a sociologist is text and data: literature reviews, survey instrument drafts, regression and coding runs, interview transcript analysis, grant narratives, journal manuscripts — the exact work current models do at usable draft quality. What resists is the front end (choosing which social question matters, designing a sample that survives peer review) and the field end (gaining access to communities, sitting with respondents, reading a setting in person). No licensure protects the title, and much of the employment is grant- and university-funded, so budget pressure hits before AI does.", "outlook": "The occupation is small and stays small; academic and pure-research slots shrink while applied evaluation, survey methodology, and field-based roles hold, so the median sociologist in 2035 is doing more primary data collection and less writing.", "what_would_raise_it": { "levers": [ { "dimension": "task_resistance", "change": "Task-mix shift: if literature review, coding of transcripts, and regression scripting are fully absorbed by models, the residual job is research design, IRB-defensible sampling, and interpretation of contested findings — the tier journals and funders still demand a named human for. Watch for NSF Sociology program solicitations and top-journal (ASR, AJS) submission policies that require disclosure of AI-generated analysis and place design/interpretation on the author.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 4 }, { "dimension": "embodiment", "change": "If funders and journals tighten evidentiary standards for ethnography and in-person fieldwork — e.g. requiring documented field access, community consent, and observation logs that cannot be synthesized — the irreducibly in-person share of the occupation's hours grows relative to desk work. Visible in ASA ethics guidance and qualitative-data-transparency debates (the QTD initiative).", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 3 }, { "dimension": "judgment_accountability", "change": "If IRB and human-subjects rules explicitly bar AI from serving as principal investigator or from making consent/risk determinations, the named sociologist owns every ambiguous call on harm, deception, and de-identification. Also applicable where sociologists serve as expert witnesses: FRE 702 and Daubert require a testifying human whose methodology is cross-examinable.", "plausibility": "already happening", "would_add": 4 }, { "dimension": "trust_premium", "change": "Narrow route only: litigation and government advisory work where the buyer is purchasing a deposable, cross-examinable human (class-action labor market experts, DOJ/EEOC consultants, census advisory panels). No general public trust premium exists for the title.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 2 } ], "ceiling_note": "Liability shield has no realistic route — there is no sociology licensure anywhere in the US and no professional body seeking one, so signature authority cannot attach. The binding constraint is funding, not capability: grant and tenure-line contraction removes positions regardless of what models can do, so capability-side gains do not translate into employment." }, "adjudication": { "method": "two independent runs agreed on the verdict", "outcome": "corroborated", "run_totals": [ 34, 34 ], "run_verdicts": [ "EXPOSED", "EXPOSED" ] }, "employment_history": { "points": [ { "y": 2017, "emp": 2770, "wage": 79650 }, { "y": 2018, "emp": 2710, "wage": 82050 }, { "y": 2019, "emp": 2630, "wage": 83420 }, { "y": 2020, "emp": 2470, "wage": 86110 }, { "y": 2021, "emp": 2640, "wage": 92910 }, { "y": 2022, "emp": 2980, "wage": 98590 }, { "y": 2023, "emp": 2890, "wage": 101770 }, { "y": 2024, "emp": 2950, "wage": 101690 }, { "y": 2025, "emp": 2260, "wage": 106030 } ], "from": 2017, "to": 2025, "change_pct": -18.4, "comparable_from": 2019, "spans_soc_revision": true }, "pivots": [ { "slug": "anthropology-and-archeology-teachers-postsecondary", "title": "Anthropology and Archeology Teachers, Postsecondary", "verdict": "EXPOSED", "risk_resistance": 51, "median_wage": 99650, "overlap": 88, "skills_to_close": [ "Instructing", "Speaking", "Reading Comprehension", "Time Management" ] }, { "slug": "law-teachers-postsecondary", "title": "Law Teachers, Postsecondary", "verdict": "EXPOSED", "risk_resistance": 59, "median_wage": 128500, "overlap": 79, "skills_to_close": [ "Instructing", "Speaking" ] }, { "slug": "economics-teachers-postsecondary", "title": "Economics Teachers, Postsecondary", "verdict": "EXPOSED", "risk_resistance": 45, "median_wage": 123920, "overlap": 79, "skills_to_close": [] } ], "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms" }