AI exposure: Dental Laboratory Technicians
Construct and repair full or partial dentures or dental appliances.
Reading this score
computedDental Laboratory Technicians is among the least exposed occupations measured, at 7.0% of weighted task load, rank 846 of 923. 88.2% 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 17 tasks it averages 2.82 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 Read prescriptions or specifications and examine models or impressions to determine the design..., at 55.0%. The least is Fill chipped or low spots in surfaces of devices, at 0.0%. A gap of 55.0% 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 95 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 17 tasks, 1 are currently banded exposed, 0 assisted and 16 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 | 0.34 | 0-4 |
| Embodiment | 2.82 | 0-3 |
| Presence | 0.79 | 0-3 |
| Accountability | 0.84 | 0-3 |
| Context | 1.17 | 0-3 |
| Verification cost | 1.38 | 0-3 |
Task by task
17 tasks, O*NET 31.0| Task | Exposed | Assisted | Untouched | Importance | Band |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Read prescriptions or specifications and examine models or impressions to determine the design of dental products to be constructed. | 55.0% | 20.0% | 25.0% | 4.86 | exposed |
| Train or supervise other dental technicians or dental laboratory bench workers. | 13.8% | 23.8% | 62.5% | 4.33 | untouched |
| Test appliances for conformance to specifications and accuracy of occlusion, using articulators and micrometers. | 10.0% | 15.0% | 75.0% | 4.73 | untouched |
| Melt metals or mix plaster, porcelain, or acrylic pastes and pour materials into molds or over frameworks to form dental prostheses or apparatuses. | 5.2% | 3.1% | 91.7% | 4.31 | untouched |
| Fabricate, alter, or repair dental devices, such as dentures, crowns, bridges, inlays, or appliances for straightening teeth. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.69 | untouched |
| Place tooth models on an apparatus that mimics bite and movement of patient's jaw to evaluate functionality of model. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.61 | untouched |
| Remove excess metal or porcelain and polish surfaces of prostheses or frameworks, using polishing machines. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.48 | untouched |
| Prepare metal surfaces for bonding with porcelain to create artificial teeth, using small hand tools. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.63 | untouched |
| Rebuild or replace linings, wire sections, or missing teeth to repair dentures. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.62 | untouched |
| Apply porcelain paste or wax over prosthesis frameworks or setups, using brushes and spatulas. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.57 | untouched |
| Build and shape wax teeth, using small hand instruments and information from observations or dentists' specifications. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.48 | untouched |
| Load newly constructed teeth into porcelain furnaces to bake the porcelain onto the metal framework. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.47 | untouched |
| Mold wax over denture setups to form the full contours of artificial gums. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.35 | untouched |
| Create a model of patient's mouth by pouring plaster into a dental impression and allowing plaster to set. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.31 | untouched |
| Prepare wax bite blocks and impression trays for use. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.21 | untouched |
| Shape and solder wire and metal frames or bands for dental products, using soldering irons and hand tools. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.19 | untouched |
| Fill chipped or low spots in surfaces of devices, using acrylic resins. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.88 | 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.