COOKEDthe AI job-risk monitorSYSTEM LIVE
◀ scan anotherHEAT TREATING EQUIPMENT SETTERS, OPERATORS, AND TENDERS, METAL AND PLASTICshare ⧉
EXPOSURE TO AI
18%
RESILIENT
OBSERVED IN REAL USE · Anthropic 2026
0%
of this role’s work is already showing up in real Claude usage (Anthropic Economic Index).
Robots can’t hold a hand, a scalpel, or your nerve.

18% of this role’s O*NET tasks are within reach of today’s AI. That is the core-weighted exposure score from Eloundou et al. 2023 (“GPTs are GPTs”). It measures a capability ceiling, not a headcount forecast. Certified hard to automate. Today’s AI barely touches the core of this one.

WHAT AI CAN ALREADY DO
  • Record times that parts are removed from furnaces to document that objects have attained specified temperatures for specified times
  • Read production schedules and work orders to determine processing sequences, furnace temperatures, and heat cycle requirements for objects to be heat-treated
  • Determine flame temperatures, current frequencies, heating cycles, and induction heating coils needed, based on degree of hardness required and properties of stock to be treated
  • Determine types and temperatures of baths and quenching media needed to attain specified part hardness, toughness, and ductility, using heat-treating charts and knowledge of methods, equipment, and metals
WHAT IT STILL CAN’T
  • Adjust controls to maintain temperatures and heating times, using thermal instruments and charts, dials and gauges of furnaces, and color of stock in furnaces to make setting determinations
  • Start conveyors and open furnace doors to load stock, or signal crane operators to uncover soaking pits and lower ingots into them
  • Set up and operate or tend machines, such as furnaces, baths, flame-hardening machines, and electronic induction machines, that harden, anneal, and heat-treat metal
  • Remove parts from furnaces after specified times, and air dry or cool parts in water, oil brine, or other baths
  • Move controls to light gas burners and to adjust gas and water flow and flame temperature
THE HONEST PART. A percentage is not a pink slip. High exposure usually means a role shrinks and shifts toward judgment, direction and responsibility: the parts a model can’t sign its name to. Exposure ≠ displacement. Breathe.
SOURCES: O*NET 30.3 occupational tasks · Eloundou et al. 2023 (“GPTs are GPTs”,arXiv:2303.10130) · Anthropic Economic Index 2026 (CC-BY)  | how this is calculated  | last updated 2026-07-16