AI exposure: Orthodontists

At 14.0% of weighted task load, Orthodontists sits at the 22th percentile, below the point where a job's centre of gravity has moved. 59.1% 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 accountability. Across this occupation's 11 tasks it averages 2.82 out of 3, the highest of the five friction dimensions. In plain terms, someone licensed has to sign the work. Capability and permission are different things. Where a statute or a professional body requires a named, liable human to approve the output, the work can be drafted by a machine and still require the person.

The most exposed thing this job does is Prepare diagnostic and treatment records, at 53.3%. The least is Adjust dental appliances to produce and maintain normal function, at 0.0%. A gap of 53.3% 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 healthcare practitioner and technical occupations, this one is less exposed than the median of 18.5% across the group's 89 roles, with 66 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 11 tasks, 1 are currently banded exposed, 5 assisted and 5 untouched. For that distribution to shift materially would take a change in who is permitted to sign the work, which is a question for regulators rather than for engineers. The score is re-computed every quarter against a fresh capability reference, and the change is published rather than quietly applied.