AI exposure: Fiberglass Laminators and Fabricators
Laminate layers of fiberglass on molds to form boat decks and hulls, bodies for golf carts, automobiles, or other products.
Reading this score
computedFiberglass Laminators and Fabricators is among the least exposed occupations measured, at 4.6% of weighted task load, rank 883 of 923. 92.9% of this job is work current AI systems cannot produce at all. That is not a statement about skill or value. It is a statement about what these systems can and cannot do.
What holds the line here is embodiment. Across this occupation's 16 tasks it averages 2.88 out of 3, the highest of the five friction dimensions. In plain terms, the work has to happen in physical space. A language model cannot move matter. Until the robotics to do this work is both good enough and cheap enough to deploy widely, capability in software does not reach it.
The most exposed thing this job does is Select precut fiberglass mats, cloth, and wood-bracing materials as required by projects being..., at 50.0%. The least is Trim cured materials by sawing them with diamond-impregnated cutoff wheels, at 0.0%. A gap of 50.0% 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 production occupations, this one is less exposed than the median of 16.2% across the group's 107 roles, with 100 scoring higher. Being in an exposed family does not make a particular job exposed, and the reverse holds too.
What would move this score. Of 16 tasks, 1 are currently banded exposed, 0 assisted and 15 untouched. For that distribution to shift materially would take robotics cheap and reliable enough to deploy at scale, not a better language model. The score is re-computed every quarter against a fresh capability reference, and the change is published rather than quietly applied.
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 | 0.27 | 0-4 |
| Embodiment | 2.88 | 0-3 |
| Presence | 0.08 | 0-3 |
| Accountability | 0.32 | 0-3 |
| Context | 0.88 | 0-3 |
| Verification cost | 0.81 | 0-3 |
Task by task
16 tasks, O*NET 31.0| Task | Exposed | Assisted | Untouched | Importance | Band |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Select precut fiberglass mats, cloth, and wood-bracing materials as required by projects being assembled. | 50.0% | 25.0% | 25.0% | 4.22 | exposed |
| Check all dies, templates, and cutout patterns to be used in the manufacturing process to ensure that they conform to dimensional data, photographs, blueprints, samples, or customer specifications. | 13.3% | 11.7% | 75.0% | 3.87 | untouched |
| Inspect, clean, and assemble molds before beginning work. | 5.0% | 3.3% | 91.7% | 4.29 | untouched |
| Release air bubbles and smooth seams, using rollers. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.55 | untouched |
| Spray chopped fiberglass, resins, and catalysts onto prepared molds or dies using pneumatic spray guns with chopper attachments. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.47 | untouched |
| Mix catalysts into resins, and saturate cloth and mats with mixtures, using brushes. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.43 | untouched |
| Check completed products for conformance to specifications and for defects by measuring with rulers or micrometers, by checking them visually, or by tapping them to detect bubbles or dead spots. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.38 | untouched |
| Pat or press layers of saturated mat or cloth into place on molds, using brushes or hands, and smooth out wrinkles and air bubbles with hands or squeegees. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.29 | untouched |
| Bond wood reinforcing strips to decks and cabin structures of watercraft, using resin-saturated fiberglass. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.02 | untouched |
| Trim excess materials from molds, using hand shears or trimming knives. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.82 | untouched |
| Apply layers of plastic resin to mold surfaces prior to placement of fiberglass mats, repeating layers until products have the desired thicknesses and plastics have jelled. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.44 | untouched |
| Cure materials by letting them set at room temperature, placing them under heat lamps, or baking them in ovens. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.18 | untouched |
| Apply lacquers and waxes to mold surfaces to facilitate assembly and removal of laminated parts. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.07 | untouched |
| Repair or modify damaged or defective glass-fiber parts, checking thicknesses, densities, and contours to ensure a close fit after repair. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.02 | untouched |
| Mask off mold areas not to be laminated, using cellophane, wax paper, masking tape, or special sprays containing mold-release substances. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.02 | untouched |
| Trim cured materials by sawing them with diamond-impregnated cutoff wheels. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.68 | untouched |
Task text and importance ratings sourced from O*NET 31.0. Shares computed. The occupation score is the importance-weighted mean.
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.
What this means in practice
Most of this work is not reachable by current systems, so the immediate pressure is on the administrative edges of the role rather than its core: the scheduling, the reporting, the written records. That is where time is recovered.