AI exposure: Gem and Diamond Workers
Fabricate, finish, or evaluate the quality of gems and diamonds used in jewelry or industrial tools.
Reading this score
computedAt 12.5% of weighted task load, Gem and Diamond Workers sits at the 20th percentile, below the point where a job's centre of gravity has moved. 75.6% 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 22 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 Estimate wholesale and retail value of gems, following pricing guides, market fluctuations, and..., at 50.0%. The least is Regulate the speed of revolutions and reciprocating actions of drilling mechanisms, at 0.0%. A gap of 50.0% 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 68 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 22 tasks, 2 are currently banded exposed, 1 assisted and 19 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 | 0.72 | 0-4 |
| Embodiment | 2.65 | 0-3 |
| Presence | 0.40 | 0-3 |
| Accountability | 0.72 | 0-3 |
| Context | 1.47 | 0-3 |
| Verification cost | 1.36 | 0-3 |
Task by task
22 tasks, O*NET 31.0| Task | Exposed | Assisted | Untouched | Importance | Band |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Estimate wholesale and retail value of gems, following pricing guides, market fluctuations, and other relevant economic factors. | 50.0% | 25.0% | 25.0% | 4.38 | exposed |
| Advise customers and others on the best use of gems to create attractive jewelry items. | 50.0% | 25.0% | 25.0% | 4.06 | exposed |
| Identify and document stones' clarity characteristics, using plot diagrams. | 29.2% | 33.3% | 37.5% | 4.41 | assisted |
| Select shaping wheels for tasks, and mix and apply abrasives, bort, or polishing compounds. | 15.0% | 10.0% | 75.0% | 3.58 | untouched |
| Assign polish, symmetry, and clarity grades to stones, according to established grading systems. | 11.7% | 13.3% | 75.0% | 4.41 | untouched |
| Hold stones, gems, dies, or styluses against rotating plates, wheels, saws, or slitters to cut, shape, slit, grind, or polish them. | 8.8% | 3.8% | 87.5% | 4.01 | untouched |
| Regrind drill points, and advance drill cutting points according to specifications for channel depths and shapes. | 7.9% | 4.6% | 87.5% | 3.12 | untouched |
| Lap girdles on rough diamonds, using diamond girdling lathes. | 5.4% | 3.0% | 91.7% | – | untouched |
| Examine gems during processing to ensure accuracy of angles and positions of cuts or bores, using magnifying glasses, loupes, or shadowgraphs. | 5.0% | 20.0% | 75.0% | 4.31 | untouched |
| Examine diamonds or gems to ascertain the shape, cut, and width of cut stones, or to select the cuts that will result in the biggest, best quality stones. | 5.0% | 20.0% | 75.0% | 4.20 | untouched |
| Examine gem surfaces and internal structures, using polariscopes, refractometers, microscopes, and other optical instruments, to differentiate between stones, to identify rare specimens, or to detect flaws, defects, or peculiarities affecting gem values. | 5.0% | 20.0% | 75.0% | 4.19 | untouched |
| Immerse stones in prescribed chemical solutions to determine specific gravities and key properties of gemstones or substitutes. | 5.0% | 20.0% | 75.0% | 3.43 | untouched |
| Locate and mark drilling or cutting positions on stones or dies, using diamond chips and power hand tools. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.80 | untouched |
| Secure gems or diamonds in holders, chucks, dops, lapidary sticks, or blocks for cutting, polishing, grinding, drilling, or shaping. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.75 | untouched |
| Measure sizes of stones' bore holes and cuts to ensure adherence to specifications, using precision measuring instruments. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.38 | untouched |
| Sort rough diamonds into categories based on shape, size, color, and quality. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.16 | untouched |
| Place stones in clamps on polishing machines and polish facets of stones, using felt-covered or canvas-covered polishing wheels and polishing compounds such as tripoli and rouge. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.07 | untouched |
| Replace, true, and sharpen blades, drills, and plates. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.56 | untouched |
| Secure stones in metal mountings, using solder. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.44 | untouched |
| Split gems along pre-marked lines to remove imperfections, using blades and jewelers' hammers. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.07 | untouched |
| Dismantle lapping, boring, cutting, polishing, and shaping equipment and machinery to clean and lubricate it. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 2.89 | untouched |
| Regulate the speed of revolutions and reciprocating actions of drilling mechanisms. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 2.64 | 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.