AI exposure: Boilermakers
Construct, assemble, maintain, and repair stationary steam boilers and boiler house auxiliaries. Align structures or plate sections to assemble boiler frame tanks or vats, following blueprints. Work involves use of hand and power tools, plumb bobs, levels, wedges, dogs, or turnbuckles. Assist in testing assembled vessels. Direct cleaning of boilers and boiler furnaces. Inspect and repair boiler fittings, such as safety valves, regulators, automatic-control mechanisms, water columns, and auxiliary machines.
Reading this score
computedBoilermakers is among the least exposed occupations measured, at 4.6% of weighted task load, rank 881 of 923. 90.6% 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 18 tasks it averages 2.89 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 Study blueprints to determine locations, relationships, or dimensions of parts, at 30.0%. The least is Install refractory bricks or other heat-resistant materials in fireboxes of pressure vessels, at 0.0%. A gap of 30.0% 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 construction and extraction occupations, this one is less exposed than the median of 5.1% across the group's 61 roles, with 33 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 18 tasks, 1 are currently banded exposed, 0 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 | 0.28 | 0-4 |
| Embodiment | 2.89 | 0-3 |
| Presence | 0.22 | 0-3 |
| Accountability | 0.92 | 0-3 |
| Context | 1.17 | 0-3 |
| Verification cost | 1.33 | 0-3 |
Task by task
18 tasks, O*NET 31.0| Task | Exposed | Assisted | Untouched | Importance | Band |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Study blueprints to determine locations, relationships, or dimensions of parts. | 30.0% | 20.0% | 50.0% | 4.07 | exposed |
| Conduct pressure tests on vessels, such as boilers. | 11.7% | 13.3% | 75.0% | 4.12 | untouched |
| Examine boilers, pressure vessels, tanks, or vats to locate defects, such as leaks, weak spots, or defective sections, so that they can be repaired. | 10.0% | 15.0% | 75.0% | 3.91 | untouched |
| Inspect assembled vessels or individual components, such as tubes, fittings, valves, controls, or auxiliary mechanisms, to locate any defects. | 10.0% | 15.0% | 75.0% | 3.84 | untouched |
| Lay out plate, sheet steel, or other heavy metal and locate and mark bending and cutting lines, using protractors, compasses, and drawing instruments or templates. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.74 | untouched |
| Bell, bead with power hammers, or weld pressure vessel tube ends to ensure leakproof joints. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.73 | untouched |
| Locate and mark reference points for columns or plates on boiler foundations, following blueprints and using straightedges, squares, transits, or measuring instruments. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.66 | untouched |
| Shape or fabricate parts, such as stacks, uptakes, or chutes, to adapt pressure vessels, heat exchangers, or piping to premises, using heavy-metalworking machines such as brakes, rolls, or drill presses. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.59 | untouched |
| Position, align, and secure structural parts or related assemblies to boiler frames, tanks, or vats of pressure vessels, following blueprints. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.52 | untouched |
| Clean pressure vessel equipment, using scrapers, wire brushes, and cleaning solvents. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.52 | untouched |
| Repair or replace defective pressure vessel parts, such as safety valves or regulators, using torches, jacks, caulking hammers, power saws, threading dies, welding equipment, or metalworking machinery. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.48 | untouched |
| Attach rigging and signal crane or hoist operators to lift heavy frame and plate sections or other parts into place. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.48 | untouched |
| Straighten or reshape bent pressure vessel plates or structure parts, using hammers, jacks, or torches. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.44 | untouched |
| Shape seams, joints, or irregular edges of pressure vessel sections or structural parts to attain specified fit of parts, using cutting torches, hammers, files, or metalworking machines. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.42 | untouched |
| Bolt or arc weld pressure vessel structures and parts together, using wrenches or welding equipment. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.36 | untouched |
| Install manholes, handholes, taps, tubes, valves, gauges, or feedwater connections in drums of water tube boilers, using hand tools. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.29 | untouched |
| Assemble large vessels in an on-site fabrication shop prior to installation to ensure proper fit. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.94 | untouched |
| Install refractory bricks or other heat-resistant materials in fireboxes of pressure vessels. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.06 | untouched |
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.
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.