{ "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register", "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/stonemasons/", "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": "Stonemasons", "soc_code": "47-2022", "category": "Construction", "us_employment": 7820, "median_annual_wage": 57390 }, "verdict": "SAFE", "risk_resistance": 69, "contested": false, "near_boundary": false, "dimensions": { "task_resistance": 19, "embodiment": 20, "liability_shield": 6, "trust_premium": 12, "judgment_accountability": 12 }, "reasoning": { "task_resistance": "Every stone arrives with a different bed, grain, and fracture line, so the mason judges each piece at the moment of setting — trimming the back of a jamb stone to clear an out-of-plumb wall, feathering a joint to hide a course that drifted a quarter inch over 30 feet — and the only automated slice of the trade is CNC shop fabrication of dimensional pieces, which still needs a human to set and point them on the wall, which is why this sits at 19 rather than the mid-teens of trades where prefab has genuinely displaced field work.", "embodiment": "The work is 100-plus-pound units lifted onto scaffold or setting bed, mortar mixed and struck by hand in whatever weather the pour schedule allows, wet-saw cutting on site, restoration work on parapets and chimney stacks from a swing stage, and repointing in crawl-height crypts and basements — there is no version of this at a screen, hence the ceiling.", "liability_shield": "There is no stonemason license in essentially any state; the general contractor's building permit and the structural engineer's stamp carry the code liability for veneer anchorage and lintel bearing, and what earns the 6 rather than a 0 is that restoration and historic-preservation work often requires documented apprenticeship or NPS/Secretary of the Interior standards competency, plus union certification for many commercial jobs.", "trust_premium": "Architects, monument buyers, and homeowners choose a mason on a portfolio of walls they can walk up to and touch, and repeat referral work on fireplaces, entry surrounds, and headstones is a real book of business — but the contract is usually with a masonry contractor bidding a spec, not with you personally, so the relationship supplements the price rather than being the price.", "judgment_accountability": "You decide mortar mix and joint profile to match a 1890s lime-mortar wall, whether a spalling stone is repointed or cut out and replaced, how to shim and bond a course when the substrate is off-layout — real calls with real consequences for water intrusion — but the structural loads, anchor spacing, and flashing details are on someone else's drawings, which is what keeps this at 12 instead of the high teens." }, "rationale": "Setting stone requires reading an irregular natural material by hand, shaping it with hammer and chisel or wet saw, and fitting each piece into a course that no two jobs repeat — there is no digitizable version of this. AI touches only the paper edges of the trade: takeoffs, material estimates, pattern layout drawings, and bid paperwork. The weak spot is regulatory: unlike electricians, most stonemasons hold no license and carry no personal sign-off liability, so the moat is purely physical skill and demand for custom masonry.", "outlook": "Employment stays small and steady, driven by construction cycles and the supply of trained masons rather than by AI; the office side of the business shrinks while the tools and the hands stay the same.", "what_would_raise_it": { "levers": [ { "dimension": "liability_shield", "change": "Adoption in more jurisdictions of mandatory masonry/facade contractor licensing plus a named-inspector sign-off — the concrete precedent is NYC Local Law 11/FISP Facade Inspection Safety Program, where a Qualified Exterior Wall Inspector personally certifies facade repairs, and Chicago's facade ordinance after the 2015 terra cotta fatalities. If a state adopts a masonry specialty license (as Nevada, North Carolina and Virginia already have contractor classifications for masonry) with personal liability for anchorage and veneer attachment, the shield rises.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 5 }, { "dimension": "liability_shield", "change": "Insurer or lender requirement that structural stone veneer over a set height be installed and signed off by a certified mason (e.g. MCAA/ICPI-style certification made contractually mandatory in AIA specs or by builders-risk carriers after veneer-detachment claims).", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 3 }, { "dimension": "trust_premium", "change": "Growth in the historic-preservation channel where the Secretary of the Interior's Standards and Section 106 review effectively require hand-tooled, in-kind repair — federal/state historic tax credit work already forbids substituting machine-cut or cast substitutes. Wider state historic tax credit programs or landmark district expansion increases the share of work explicitly bought as hand craft.", "plausibility": "already happening", "would_add": 4 }, { "dimension": "judgment_accountability", "change": "Task-mix shift: as robotic bricklaying (SAM100-type) and CNC stone saws absorb straight-run and repeat-cut work, the residual job concentrates on the calls machines cannot own — reading a defective block, deciding whether a wall gets repointed or rebuilt, matching quarry lots for weathering. Real two-tier structure here.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 3 } ], "ceiling_note": "Already 69 with task_resistance and embodiment near maximum; realistic headroom is almost entirely in licensing and preservation demand, and the trade's small size (7,820) means no national licensing push is likely to be driven by masons themselves — it would arrive as a byproduct of facade-failure litigation." }, "adjudication": null, "employment_history": { "points": [ { "y": 2017, "emp": 11990, "wage": 38940 }, { "y": 2018, "emp": 12310, "wage": 41220 }, { "y": 2019, "emp": 12390, "wage": 43280 }, { "y": 2020, "emp": 11830, "wage": 43650 }, { "y": 2021, "emp": 9000, "wage": 47610 }, { "y": 2022, "emp": 10220, "wage": 50210 }, { "y": 2023, "emp": 9790, "wage": 51830 }, { "y": 2024, "emp": 8750, "wage": 51990 }, { "y": 2025, "emp": 7820, "wage": 57390 } ], "from": 2017, "to": 2025, "change_pct": -34.8, "comparable_from": 2019, "spans_soc_revision": true }, "pivots": [], "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms" }