How exposed to AI is the job of Foundry Mold and Coremakers?

1.1% of the weighted task load of Foundry Mold and Coremakers is exposed, meaning work current AI systems can produce with little structural friction. A further 0.5% is assisted work and 98.4% is untouched. That places it 1th out of 923 occupations, rank 912, in release v2026.Q3 of the Task Exposure Index.

Will AI replace Foundry Mold and Coremakers?

The index does not measure displacement. It measures what current AI systems can produce and what stands in the way. Whether exposed work becomes a lost job depends on firm economics, regulation and organisational inertia, none of which this index models.

Which tasks of a Foundry Mold and Coremakers are most exposed to AI?

Of 13 tasks O*NET records for this occupation, 0 are exposed, 0 assisted and 13 untouched. The full task-by-task breakdown is published on this page.

Occupation · SOC 51-4071.00 · Job Zone 2

AI exposure: Foundry Mold and Coremakers

Make or form wax or sand cores or molds used in the production of metal castings in foundries.

Reading this score

computed

Foundry Mold and Coremakers is among the least exposed occupations measured, at 1.1% of weighted task load, rank 912 of 923. 98.4% 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 13 tasks it averages 3.00 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 Operate ovens or furnaces to bake cores or to melt, skim, and flux metal, at 16.7%. The least is Pour molten metal into molds, manually or with crane ladles, at 0.0%. A gap of 16.7% 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 103 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 13 tasks, 0 are currently banded exposed, 0 assisted and 13 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

judged

Every 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	0.08	0-4
Embodiment	3.00	0-3
Presence	0.12	0-3
Accountability	0.08	0-3
Context	0.81	0-3
Verification cost	0.85	0-3

Task by task

13 tasks, O*NET 31.0

Task	Exposed	Assisted	Untouched	Importance	Band
Operate ovens or furnaces to bake cores or to melt, skim, and flux metal.	16.7%	8.3%	75.0%	4.32	untouched
Clean and smooth molds, cores, and core boxes, and repair surface imperfections.	0.0%	0.0%	100.0%	4.68	untouched
Sift and pack sand into mold sections, core boxes, and pattern contours, using hand or pneumatic ramming tools.	0.0%	0.0%	100.0%	4.64	untouched
Position patterns inside mold sections, and clamp sections together.	0.0%	0.0%	100.0%	4.64	untouched
Position cores into lower sections of molds, and reassemble molds for pouring.	0.0%	0.0%	100.0%	4.64	untouched
Sprinkle or spray parting agents onto patterns and mold sections to facilitate removal of patterns from molds.	0.0%	0.0%	100.0%	4.53	untouched
Form and assemble slab cores around patterns, and position wire in mold sections to reinforce molds, using hand tools and glue.	0.0%	0.0%	100.0%	4.50	untouched
Move and position workpieces, such as mold sections, patterns, and bottom boards, using cranes, or signal others to move workpieces.	0.0%	0.0%	100.0%	4.44	untouched
Lift upper mold sections from lower sections, and remove molded patterns.	0.0%	0.0%	100.0%	4.27	untouched
Cut spouts, runner holes, and sprue holes into molds.	0.0%	0.0%	100.0%	4.26	untouched
Tend machines that bond cope and drag together to form completed shell molds.	0.0%	0.0%	100.0%	4.61	untouched
Rotate sweep boards around spindles to make symmetrical molds for convex impressions.	0.0%	0.0%	100.0%	4.44	untouched
Pour molten metal into molds, manually or with crane ladles.	0.0%	0.0%	100.0%	4.41	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.