AI exposure: Ophthalmic Medical Technicians
Assist ophthalmologists by performing ophthalmic clinical functions. May administer eye exams, administer eye medications, and instruct the patient in care and use of corrective lenses.
Reading this score
computedAt 8.1% of weighted task load, Ophthalmic Medical Technicians sits at the 10th percentile, below the point where a job's centre of gravity has moved. 76.5% of what this role does is untouched, meaning current systems cannot produce that work at all, whatever the commercial incentive.
What holds the line here is embodiment. Across this occupation's 20 tasks it averages 2.65 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 Take and document patients' medical histories, at 35.0%. The least is Adjust or make minor repairs to spectacles or eyeglasses, at 0.0%. A gap of 35.0% 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 healthcare practitioner and technical occupations, this one is less exposed than the median of 18.5% across the group's 89 roles, with 83 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 20 tasks, 0 are currently banded exposed, 3 assisted and 17 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 | 0.93 | 0-4 |
| Embodiment | 2.65 | 0-3 |
| Presence | 2.15 | 0-3 |
| Accountability | 2.20 | 0-3 |
| Context | 1.43 | 0-3 |
| Verification cost | 2.12 | 0-3 |
Task by task
20 tasks, O*NET 31.0| Task | Exposed | Assisted | Untouched | Importance | Band |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Take and document patients' medical histories. | 35.0% | 40.0% | 25.0% | 4.95 | assisted |
| Assist patients to select eyewear. | 20.0% | 30.0% | 50.0% | 2.70 | assisted |
| Measure and record lens power, using lensometers. | 16.7% | 33.3% | 50.0% | 4.86 | assisted |
| Take anatomical or functional ocular measurements of the eye or surrounding tissue, such as axial length measurements. | 10.0% | 15.0% | 75.0% | 4.90 | untouched |
| Measure corneal curvature with keratometers or ophthalmometers to aid in the diagnosis of conditions, such as astigmatism. | 10.0% | 15.0% | 75.0% | 4.65 | untouched |
| Conduct tonometry or tonography tests to measure intraocular pressure. | 8.3% | 16.7% | 75.0% | 4.91 | untouched |
| Operate ophthalmic equipment, such as autorefractors, phoropters, tomographs, or retinoscopes. | 8.3% | 16.7% | 75.0% | 4.91 | untouched |
| Measure visual acuity, including near, distance, pinhole, or dynamic visual acuity, using appropriate tests. | 8.3% | 16.7% | 75.0% | 4.90 | untouched |
| Conduct visual field tests to measure field of vision. | 8.3% | 16.7% | 75.0% | 4.73 | untouched |
| Conduct ocular motility tests to measure function of eye muscles. | 8.3% | 16.7% | 75.0% | 4.62 | untouched |
| Conduct binocular disparity tests to assess depth perception. | 8.3% | 16.7% | 75.0% | 3.57 | untouched |
| Instruct patients in the care and use of contact lenses. | 5.0% | 20.0% | 75.0% | 4.32 | untouched |
| Assist patients to insert or remove contact lenses. | 5.0% | 20.0% | 75.0% | 3.86 | untouched |
| Call patients to inquire about their post-operative status or recovery. | 3.3% | 21.7% | 75.0% | 4.00 | untouched |
| Assess refractive conditions of eyes, using retinoscopes. | 2.9% | 9.6% | 87.5% | 4.11 | untouched |
| Administer topical ophthalmic or oral medications. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.77 | untouched |
| Assist physicians in performing ophthalmic procedures, including surgery. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.71 | untouched |
| Clean or sterilize ophthalmic or surgical instruments. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.57 | untouched |
| Maintain ophthalmic instruments or equipment. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.50 | untouched |
| Adjust or make minor repairs to spectacles or eyeglasses. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 2.71 | 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.