{ "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register", "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/tutors/", "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": "Tutors", "soc_code": "25-3041", "category": "Education", "us_employment": 175070, "median_annual_wage": 43350 }, "verdict": "EXPOSED", "risk_resistance": 37, "contested": false, "near_boundary": false, "dimensions": { "task_resistance": 7, "embodiment": 8, "liability_shield": 1, "trust_premium": 14, "judgment_accountability": 7 }, "reasoning": { "task_resistance": "Explaining the quadratic formula, generating twenty more practice problems, and marking up a five-paragraph essay are the bulk of a tutoring hour and an LLM does all three on demand, which caps this at 7; the residue that holds — sitting across from a 14-year-old who says 'I get it' when he doesn't, and pacing a session against a Thursday test — keeps it out of the 0-6 band.", "embodiment": "Most sessions run at a kitchen table, a library branch, or a learning-center cubicle, with driving between clients, printed worksheets, and manipulatives for younger students — but nothing physical is being done to anything, and the same session already runs over Zoom without loss, which puts it at 8 rather than up with in-home caregivers.", "liability_shield": "No state licence, no exam, no continuing-education hours: an agency can hire a strong undergrad on a background check alone and Wyzant will list anyone who passes a subject quiz, so the 1 reflects that nothing legally stops a parent from replacing you with software or a cheaper tutor tomorrow.", "trust_premium": "Parents keep paying $60-90 an hour after the concept is explained because the specific person their kid will actually sit still for is the product — referrals move nearly all private business, and losing a tutor mid-semester means restarting the relationship, not just the curriculum, which earns 14; it stops short of 17+ because families do swap tutors between subjects and school years.", "judgment_accountability": "You decide whether to reteach fractions before tackling algebra, when to tell a parent their child is behind, and how to handle a student who's clearly copying answers — real calls made alone in the room — but they're bounded by the school's syllabus and the test date, and you don't diagnose, place, or write anything that follows the child on record, so 7 sits at the floor of genuine discretion." }, "rationale": "The informational core of tutoring — explaining a concept, working a sample problem, generating practice sets, reviewing an essay draft — is exactly what chatbots do for free, and homework-help demand is already leaking to them. What survives is the part parents actually pay for: a human who shows up weekly, notices the kid is anxious rather than confused, enforces accountability, and reports honestly to the family. Scored at the modal worker (private/agency academic tutor); credentialed special-education and dyslexia-intervention tutors sit meaningfully safer.", "outlook": "Volume for generic homework help and content review shrinks hard by the mid-2030s, while in-person intervention, test-prep coaching, and executive-function work hold or grow at higher hourly rates.", "what_would_raise_it": { "levers": [ { "dimension": "trust_premium", "change": "Testing bodies and school districts tightening in-person proctoring/behavior norms (e.g., College Board's Bluebook lockdown, and district AI-plagiarism policies) push families toward tutors as verifiable human accountability partners rather than content explainers; parents already pay premium for the weekly in-person adult who notices anxiety. A visible market bifurcation where agencies advertise 'no-AI, human-only, in-home' as a paid tier would show this.", "plausibility": "already happening", "would_add": 3 }, { "dimension": "task_resistance", "change": "Task-mix shift: once free chatbots absorb homework explanation and practice generation, the paid remainder is diagnosis of why a student is stuck, motivation/executive-function coaching, and honest reporting to parents — genuinely two-tiered work. Watch for tutoring firms repositioning as 'academic coaching' rather than subject help.", "plausibility": "already happening", "would_add": 3 }, { "dimension": "liability_shield", "change": "IEP/504 and dyslexia-intervention work moving further under state licensure: states adopting structured-literacy interventionist credential requirements (following Arkansas/Mississippi-style dyslexia laws) plus IDEA-funded services requiring a credentialed provider of record for reimbursement would give a named human legal accountability for the intervention plan. This applies mainly to the special-ed/dyslexia segment, not the modal academic tutor.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 4 }, { "dimension": "judgment_accountability", "change": "If tutors are formally written into district-funded high-dosage tutoring contracts (post-ESSER state programs in TN, TX) with attendance/progress-monitoring duties and mandatory-reporter status, the role owns escalation calls about a child's welfare and placement, not just content delivery.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 3 } ], "ceiling_note": "Even with all of these, the modal private academic tutor stays exposed: the paid product for most families is subject-matter explanation, which is free elsewhere, and no licensure regime is being proposed for general tutoring. The gains concentrate in credentialed intervention and district-contracted roles — a different job than most of these 175,070 workers hold." }, "adjudication": null, "employment_history": { "points": [ { "y": 2021, "emp": 147100, "wage": 36470 }, { "y": 2022, "emp": 174980, "wage": 36680 }, { "y": 2023, "emp": 162300, "wage": 39580 }, { "y": 2024, "emp": 174660, "wage": 40090 }, { "y": 2025, "emp": 175070, "wage": 43350 } ], "from": 2021, "to": 2025, "change_pct": 19, "comparable_from": 2021, "spans_soc_revision": false }, "pivots": [ { "slug": "special-education-teachers-middle-school", "title": "Special Education Teachers, Middle School", "verdict": "SAFE", "risk_resistance": 76, "median_wage": 66810, "overlap": 79, "skills_to_close": [ "Coordination", "Systems Evaluation", "Time Management", "Service Orientation" ] }, { "slug": "secondary-school-teachers-except-special-and-career-technical-education", "title": "Secondary School Teachers, Except Special and Career/Technical Education", "verdict": "SAFE", "risk_resistance": 69, "median_wage": 72040, "overlap": 79, "skills_to_close": [ "Quality Control Analysis", "Management of Material Resources", "Coordination", "Management of Financial Resources" ] }, { "slug": "elementary-school-teachers-except-special-education", "title": "Elementary School Teachers, Except Special Education", "verdict": "SAFE", "risk_resistance": 72, "median_wage": 63970, "overlap": 76, "skills_to_close": [ "Coordination", "Systems Evaluation", "Quality Control Analysis", "Time Management" ] } ], "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms" }