{
  "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register",
  "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/teachers-and-instructors-all-other/",
  "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": "Teachers and Instructors, All Other",
    "soc_code": "25-3099",
    "category": "Education",
    "us_employment": 113790,
    "median_annual_wage": 66140
  },
  "verdict": "EXPOSED",
  "risk_resistance": 48,
  "contested": false,
  "near_boundary": false,
  "dimensions": {
    "task_resistance": 10,
    "embodiment": 12,
    "liability_shield": 4,
    "trust_premium": 13,
    "judgment_accountability": 9
  },
  "reasoning": {
    "task_resistance": "Lesson planning, quiz-writing, and walking a student through standard GED math or SAT reading are already delivered by adaptive platforms and chatbots at near-zero cost, but the pacing decisions, re-explaining when a learner stalls, and holding an adult's attention through a two-hour night class are not, which splits the job roughly down the middle rather than leaving it mostly intact.",
    "embodiment": "A driving instructor sits in the passenger seat with a dual brake in live traffic and a welding or CPR instructor corrects grip and posture by hand, but a large share of this bucket — test prep, ESL conversation, adult basic ed — runs fine over Zoom from a rented classroom, so the physical requirement is real for a subset rather than universal.",
    "liability_shield": "Most of this bucket needs no teaching licence: state driver-training certificates and program-specific credentials exist, but a community-ed instructor or private tutor can be hired on subject knowledge alone, and no statute makes them personally answerable for a learner's outcome the way a licensed professional signs off on work.",
    "trust_premium": "Adult learners who failed once in school and teenagers who are frightened of the road come back for a specific person, not a curriculum — retention in test prep and adult ed tracks the instructor's name and referrals — but placement is often through a school, dealership, or district program that controls the client, which keeps this short of the fully portable book of business a private coach holds.",
    "judgment_accountability": "Instructors decide when a student is road-ready, when to move a class off the syllabus, and when a learner's silence is confusion or something worse, but they work inside curricula, state driver-ed hour requirements, and standardized test frameworks that set most of the calls in advance."
  },
  "rationale": "This is a catch-all bucket — driving instructors, adult education and GED instructors, test-prep and enrichment tutors, community-ed and skills instructors — so the modal worker teaches live to small groups or one-on-one outside the licensed K-12 and postsecondary systems. Curriculum writing, worksheet and quiz generation, slide decks, grading, and one-on-one explanation of standard material are exactly what chatbots and adaptive tutoring platforms now do at near-zero marginal cost, which hollows out the paid-tutoring tier hardest. What survives is the in-room work: keeping a reluctant teenager behind the wheel, motivating an adult who dropped out at 16, physically correcting form, and being the person a learner shows up for.",
  "outlook": "The materials-and-explanation half of this work gets absorbed by cheap AI tutoring within a decade, while instructors tied to vehicles, tools, bodies, and pass-rate accountability keep steady demand.",
  "what_would_raise_it": {
    "levers": [
      {
        "dimension": "liability_shield",
        "change": "State DMV/licensing rules that require a state-certified driving instructor to be physically present and to sign the behind-the-wheel completion certificate that unlocks a provisional license — already the structure in most states (e.g. California DMV secondary-license driving instructor certification, Texas TDLR driver education instructor licensing). Extension of similar sign-off mandates to other regulated instruction (OSHA 10/30 authorized trainers, ServSafe proctors, flight/CDL and forklift certifiers) where an AI-issued credential is explicitly not accepted would raise this further.",
        "plausibility": "already happening",
        "would_add": 5
      },
      {
        "dimension": "liability_shield",
        "change": "Test-integrity rules from credentialing bodies (GED Testing Service, Pearson VUE, state adult-ed offices) requiring a named human proctor personally accountable for identity verification and irregularity reports, with remote-AI-only proctoring disallowed after cheating scandals.",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 3
      },
      {
        "dimension": "task_resistance",
        "change": "Task-mix shift: as chatbots absorb worksheet generation, standard-material explanation and grading, the paid hours that remain are the ones AI cannot do — in-vehicle risk coaching, re-engaging an adult who dropped out at 16, hands-on form correction. This occupation genuinely has two tiers, and the routine tier is the one already collapsing; the surviving job scores higher on resistance even as total headcount falls.",
        "plausibility": "already happening",
        "would_add": 4
      },
      {
        "dimension": "judgment_accountability",
        "change": "Instructor-of-record duty for readiness calls with real consequences: declaring a student road-test-ready, signing off that a trainee may operate a forklift or scaffold, or flagging a learner as unsafe. If insurers of driving schools or trade-training providers require documented named-instructor judgment on each pass/fail (as some commercial auto and E&O carriers do), the role owns a consequential ambiguous call.",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 4
      },
      {
        "dimension": "trust_premium",
        "change": "Buyers who pay specifically for a human accountability relationship — parents purchasing behind-the-wheel packages, adults paying for a coach they show up for. A visible route up is contract structures where the fee is explicitly for scheduled human contact hours (workforce-board and WIOA-funded adult ed reimbursing per human instructional hour, not per completion), which prices out AI-only providers.",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 3
      },
      {
        "dimension": "embodiment",
        "change": "Growth in the share of hours spent in genuinely unpredictable physical settings — dual-control vehicles in traffic, shop floors, kitchens, pools — as the classroom-and-worksheet share is automated. No new rule needed; it is composition change, and it is capped because much of this bucket is still seated instruction.",
        "plausibility": "already happening",
        "would_add": 2
      }
    ],
    "ceiling_note": "The ceiling is low because this is a catch-all: the levers are real for the licensed sub-slices (driving, safety, trade certification) and nearly absent for the test-prep and enrichment tutors, who make up a large share of the bucket and face no licensure, no sign-off, and no buyer willing to pay a premium for a human explaining algebra. Any aggregate score improvement is likely to come from the low-shield tier disappearing rather than from workers in it gaining protection."
  },
  "adjudication": null,
  "employment_history": {
    "points": [
      {
        "y": 2021,
        "emp": 164650,
        "wage": 50540
      },
      {
        "y": 2022,
        "emp": 120480,
        "wage": 61250
      },
      {
        "y": 2023,
        "emp": 118290,
        "wage": 64390
      },
      {
        "y": 2024,
        "emp": 125010,
        "wage": 64690
      },
      {
        "y": 2025,
        "emp": 113790,
        "wage": 66140
      }
    ],
    "from": 2021,
    "to": 2025,
    "change_pct": -30.9,
    "comparable_from": 2021,
    "spans_soc_revision": false
  },
  "pivots": [],
  "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms"
}