AI exposure: Bioinformatics Technicians
Apply principles and methods of bioinformatics to assist scientists in areas such as pharmaceuticals, medical technology, biotechnology, computational biology, proteomics, computer information science, biology and medical informatics. Apply bioinformatics tools to visualize, analyze, manipulate or interpret molecular data. May build and maintain databases for processing and analyzing genomic or other biological information.
Reading this score
computedBioinformatics Technicians sits in the top 4% of every occupation measured. 61.4% of what this job consists of, weighted by how important each task is to the role, is work current AI systems can produce with little standing in the way. Very few occupations score this high. The ones that do tend to share a trait: the output is a document, a calculation or a message, and nobody has to be in a particular room for it to count.
What holds the line here is context. Across this occupation's 19 tasks it averages 1.82 out of 3, the highest of the five friction dimensions. In plain terms, the work depends on knowledge the model cannot hold. Much of this job runs on things that were never written down: what this particular organisation does, what happened last week, what the person across the table actually meant. That context is the barrier, and it erodes as systems are given more access.
The most exposed thing this job does is Package bioinformatics data for submission to public repositories, at 93.3%. The least is Train bioinformatics staff or researchers in the use of databases, at 26.7%. A gap of 66.7% between two parts of the same job is the reason this index publishes at task level. An occupation-wide number would have hidden both.
Within computer and mathematical occupations, this one is more exposed than most. The median across the 36 roles in the group is 56.7%, and only 13 of them score higher than this. Occupational families are not uniform, and the spread inside them is often wider than the gap between them.
What would move this score. Of 19 tasks, 19 are currently banded exposed, 0 assisted and 0 untouched. For that distribution to shift materially would take systems being given deeper access to the organisation's own records and history, which is already happening. The score is re-computed every quarter against a fresh capability reference, and the change is published rather than quietly applied.
Task by task
19 tasks, O*NET 31.0| Task | Exposed | Assisted | Untouched | Importance | Band |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Package bioinformatics data for submission to public repositories. | 93.3% | 6.7% | 0.0% | 3.28 | exposed |
| Enter or retrieve information from structural databases, protein sequence motif databases, mutation databases, genomic databases or gene expression databases. | 90.0% | 10.0% | 0.0% | 3.77 | exposed |
| Conduct quality analyses of data inputs and resulting analyses or predictions. | 80.0% | 20.0% | 0.0% | 4.02 | exposed |
| Analyze or manipulate bioinformatics data using software packages, statistical applications, or data mining techniques. | 80.0% | 20.0% | 0.0% | 3.87 | exposed |
| Document all database changes, modifications, or problems. | 73.3% | 26.7% | 0.0% | 3.54 | exposed |
| Participate in the preparation of reports or scientific publications. | 73.3% | 26.7% | 0.0% | 3.44 | exposed |
| Create data management or error-checking procedures and user manuals. | 73.3% | 26.7% | 0.0% | 3.18 | exposed |
| Develop or apply data mining and machine learning algorithms. | 73.3% | 26.7% | 0.0% | 3.66 | exposed |
| Perform routine system administrative functions, such as troubleshooting, back-ups, or upgrades. | 64.2% | 23.3% | 12.5% | 3.20 | exposed |
| Confer with researchers, clinicians, or information technology staff to determine data needs and programming requirements and to provide assistance with database-related research activities. | 50.0% | 25.0% | 25.0% | 3.96 | exposed |
| Test new or updated software or tools and provide feedback to developers. | 50.0% | 25.0% | 25.0% | 3.27 | exposed |
| Confer with database users about project timelines and changes. | 50.0% | 25.0% | 25.0% | 3.18 | exposed |
| Write computer programs or scripts to be used in querying databases. | 50.0% | 25.0% | 25.0% | 4.14 | exposed |
| Develop or maintain applications that process biologically based data into searchable databases for purposes of analysis, calculation, or presentation. | 50.0% | 25.0% | 25.0% | 4.05 | exposed |
| Extend existing software programs, web-based interactive tools, or database queries as sequence management and analysis needs evolve. | 50.0% | 25.0% | 25.0% | 3.57 | exposed |
| Design or implement web-based tools for querying large-scale biological databases. | 50.0% | 25.0% | 25.0% | – | exposed |
| Monitor database performance and perform any necessary maintenance, upgrades, or repairs. | 47.5% | 27.5% | 25.0% | 3.53 | exposed |
| Maintain awareness of new and emerging computational methods and technologies. | 33.3% | 16.7% | 50.0% | 3.41 | exposed |
| Train bioinformatics staff or researchers in the use of databases. | 26.7% | 23.3% | 50.0% | 3.36 | exposed |
Task text and importance ratings sourced from O*NET 31.0. Shares computed. The occupation score is the importance-weighted mean. 1 task(s) lacked a usable O*NET weight and are shown but excluded from the weighting.
Where the score comes from
judgedEvery task is scored through the standardised work activities it maps to. These are this occupation’s averages on the six rubric dimensions. Capability is what AI can do; the other five are what stands in the way.
| Dimension | Mean | Scale |
|---|---|---|
| Capability | 3.34 | 0-4 |
| Embodiment | 0.24 | 0-3 |
| Presence | 0.39 | 0-3 |
| Accountability | 0.68 | 0-3 |
| Context | 1.82 | 0-3 |
| Verification cost | 1.13 | 0-3 |
What this means in practice
Where most of a role's weighted task load is exposed, the work that survives is usually the part of the job nobody wrote into the job description: deciding what should be produced rather than producing it, and being answerable for the result. The tasks lowest on this page are a better guide to where to spend your time than any general advice about the future of work.
Occupations either side of this one
The four closest scores in the same occupational family, then the four closest anywhere in the index.
Read this carefully. Exposure is not displacement. A high score means current AI systems can produce this work, not that anyone will stop paying a person to do it. Adoption depends on economics, regulation and inertia that this index deliberately does not model. How the score is built.