AI exposure: Fishing and Hunting Workers
Hunt, trap, catch, or gather wild animals or aquatic animals and plants. May use nets, traps, or other equipment. May haul catch onto ship or other vessel.
Reading this score
computedFishing and Hunting Workers is among the least exposed occupations measured, at 6.3% of weighted task load, rank 861 of 923. 84.8% 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 29 tasks it averages 2.76 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 Oversee the purchase of supplies, gear, and equipment, at 45.0%. The least is Participate in animal damage control, wildlife management, disease control, and research..., at 0.0%. A gap of 45.0% 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 farming, fishing and forestry occupations, this one is less exposed than the median of 10.8% across the group's 12 roles, with 11 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 29 tasks, 3 are currently banded exposed, 0 assisted and 26 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 | 0.62 | 0-4 |
| Embodiment | 2.76 | 0-3 |
| Presence | 0.84 | 0-3 |
| Accountability | 1.07 | 0-3 |
| Context | 1.64 | 0-3 |
| Verification cost | 1.24 | 0-3 |
Task by task
29 tasks, O*NET 31.0| Task | Exposed | Assisted | Untouched | Importance | Band |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oversee the purchase of supplies, gear, and equipment. | 45.0% | 30.0% | 25.0% | 3.59 | exposed |
| Obtain permission from landowners to hunt or trap on their land. | 45.0% | 30.0% | 25.0% | 4.33 | exposed |
| Obtain required approvals for using poisons or traps, and notify persons in areas where traps and poison are set. | 40.0% | 35.0% | 25.0% | 4.20 | exposed |
| Direct fishing or hunting operations, and supervise crew members. | 10.0% | 15.0% | 75.0% | 4.57 | untouched |
| Patrol trap lines or nets to inspect settings, remove catch, and reset or relocate traps. | 10.0% | 15.0% | 75.0% | 4.60 | untouched |
| Locate fish, using fish-finding equipment. | 10.0% | 15.0% | 75.0% | 4.54 | untouched |
| Track animals by checking for signs such as droppings or destruction of vegetation. | 10.0% | 15.0% | 75.0% | 4.14 | untouched |
| Travel on foot, by vehicle, or by equipment such as boats, snowmobiles, helicopters, snowshoes, or skis to reach hunting areas. | 8.3% | 16.7% | 75.0% | 4.47 | untouched |
| Teach or guide individuals or groups unfamiliar with specific hunting methods or types of prey. | 8.3% | 16.7% | 75.0% | 3.70 | untouched |
| Steer vessels and operate navigational instruments. | 3.3% | 21.7% | 75.0% | 4.80 | untouched |
| Interpret weather and vessel conditions to determine appropriate responses. | 3.3% | 21.7% | 75.0% | 4.53 | untouched |
| Compute positions and plot courses on charts to navigate vessels, using instruments such as compasses, sextants, and charts. | 3.3% | 21.7% | 75.0% | 4.23 | untouched |
| Remove catches from fishing equipment and measure them to ensure compliance with legal size. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.60 | untouched |
| Select, bait, and set traps, and lay poison along trails, according to species, size, habits, and environs of birds or animals and reasons for trapping them. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.33 | untouched |
| Maintain engines, fishing gear, and other on-board equipment and perform minor repairs. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.31 | untouched |
| Connect accessories such as floats, weights, flags, lights, or markers to nets, lines, or traps. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.07 | untouched |
| Wash decks, conveyors, knives, and other equipment, using brushes, detergents, and water. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.06 | untouched |
| Harvest marine life for human or animal consumption, using diving or dredging equipment, traps, barges, rods, reels, or tackle. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.94 | untouched |
| Load and unload vessel equipment and supplies, by hand or using hoisting equipment. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.40 | untouched |
| Scrape fat, blubber, or flesh from skin sides of pelts with knives or hand scrapers. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.71 | untouched |
| Kill or stun trapped quarry, using clubs, poisons, guns, or drowning methods. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.50 | untouched |
| Maintain and repair trapping equipment. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.40 | untouched |
| Put fishing equipment into the water and anchor or tow equipment, according to the fishing method used. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.30 | untouched |
| Sort, pack, and store catch in holds with salt and ice. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.20 | untouched |
| Skin quarry, using knives, and stretch pelts on frames to be cured. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.14 | untouched |
| Transport fish to processing plants or to buyers. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.08 | untouched |
| Attach nets, slings, hooks, blades, or lifting devices to cables, booms, hoists, or dredges. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.80 | untouched |
| Release quarry from traps or nets and transfer to cages. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.70 | untouched |
| Participate in animal damage control, wildlife management, disease control, and research activities. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.57 | 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.