AI exposure: Patternmakers, Wood
Plan, lay out, and construct wooden unit or sectional patterns used in forming sand molds for castings.
Reading this score
computedAt 24.3% of weighted task load, Patternmakers, Wood sits at the 46th percentile, below the point where a job's centre of gravity has moved. 65.4% 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 2.02 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 Estimate costs for patternmaking jobs, at 73.3%. The least is Issue patterns to designated machine operators, at 0.0%. A gap of 73.3% 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 more exposed than most. The median across the 107 roles in the group is 16.1%, and only 9 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 20 tasks, 9 are currently banded exposed, 0 assisted and 11 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 | 1.48 | 0-4 |
| Embodiment | 2.02 | 0-3 |
| Presence | 0.17 | 0-3 |
| Accountability | 0.45 | 0-3 |
| Context | 1.12 | 0-3 |
| Verification cost | 0.93 | 0-3 |
Task by task
20 tasks, O*NET 31.0| Task | Exposed | Assisted | Untouched | Importance | Band |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Estimate costs for patternmaking jobs. | 73.3% | 26.7% | 0.0% | 4.09 | exposed |
| Maintain pattern records for reference. | 73.3% | 26.7% | 0.0% | 4.06 | exposed |
| Correct patterns to compensate for defects in castings. | 60.0% | 15.0% | 25.0% | 4.37 | exposed |
| Divide patterns into sections according to shapes of castings to facilitate removal of patterns from molds. | 55.0% | 20.0% | 25.0% | 4.40 | exposed |
| Compute dimensions, areas, volumes, and weights. | 55.0% | 20.0% | 25.0% | 3.90 | exposed |
| Inventory equipment and supplies, ordering parts and tools as necessary. | 52.5% | 22.5% | 25.0% | 3.36 | exposed |
| Select lumber to be used for patterns. | 50.0% | 25.0% | 25.0% | 3.83 | exposed |
| Read blueprints, drawings, or written specifications to determine sizes and shapes of patterns and required machine setups. | 30.0% | 20.0% | 50.0% | 4.70 | exposed |
| Collect and store patterns and lumber. | 30.0% | 20.0% | 50.0% | 3.47 | exposed |
| Set up, operate, and adjust a variety of woodworking machines such as bandsaws and lathes to cut and shape sections, parts, and patterns, according to specifications. | 23.8% | 13.8% | 62.5% | 4.32 | untouched |
| Glue fillets along interior angles of patterns. | 16.7% | 8.3% | 75.0% | 4.04 | untouched |
| Fit, fasten, and assemble wood parts together to form patterns, models, or sections, using glue, nails, dowels, bolts, and screws. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.55 | untouched |
| Lay out patterns on wood stock and draw outlines of units, sectional patterns, or full-scale mock-ups of products, based on blueprint specifications and sketches, and using marking and measuring devices. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.50 | untouched |
| Trim, smooth, and shape surfaces, and plane, shave, file, scrape, and sand models to attain specified shapes, using hand tools. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.43 | untouched |
| Verify dimensions of completed patterns, using templates, straightedges, calipers, or protractors. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.40 | untouched |
| Finish completed products or models with shellac, lacquer, wax, or paint. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.16 | untouched |
| Mark identifying information such as colors or codes on patterns, parts, and templates to indicate assembly methods. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.09 | untouched |
| Repair broken or damaged patterns. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.07 | untouched |
| Construct wooden models, templates, full scale mock-ups, jigs, or molds for shaping parts of products. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.99 | untouched |
| Issue patterns to designated machine operators. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.29 | 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.