Will AI replace Anthropologists and Archeologists?
AI reaches most of this job’s work.
57/100
Very high exposure
More exposed to AI than 87% of US workers.
- AI already used in
- 15% of the work
- As AI tools mature: up to
- 76% of the work
What the job involves
Study the origin, development, and behavior of human beings. May study the way of life, language, or physical characteristics of people in various parts of the world. May engage in systematic recovery and examination of material evidence, such as tools or pottery remaining from past human cultures, in order to determine the history, customs, and living habits of earlier civilizations.
Where AI reaches the work
The job’s main tasks, heaviest first, by how far AI reaches them.
Already happening(4)
- Write about and present research findings for a variety of specialized and general audiences.
- Create data records for use in describing and analyzing social patterns and processes, using photography, videography, and audio recordings.
- Organize public exhibits and displays to promote public awareness of diverse and distinctive cultural traditions.
- Record the exact locations and conditions of artifacts uncovered in diggings or surveys, using drawings and photographs as necessary.
Within reach(18)
- Collect information and make judgments through observation, interviews, and review of documents.
- Plan and direct research to characterize and compare the economic, demographic, health care, social, political, linguistic, and religious institutions of distinct cultural groups, communities, and organizations.
- Train others in the application of ethnographic research methods to solve problems in organizational effectiveness, communications, technology development, policy making, and program planning.
- Write grant proposals to obtain funding for research.
- Identify culturally specific beliefs and practices affecting health status and access to services for distinct populations and communities, in collaboration with medical and public health officials.
and 13 more
Out of reach(8)
- Teach or mentor undergraduate and graduate students in anthropology or archeology.
- Conduct participatory action research in communities and organizations to assess how work is done and to design work systems, technologies, and environments.
- Develop intervention procedures, using techniques such as individual and focus group interviews, consultations, and participant observation of social interaction.
- Lead field training sites and train field staff, students, and volunteers in excavation methods.
- Gather and analyze artifacts and skeletal remains to increase knowledge of ancient cultures.
and 3 more
Also called
Archaeologist · Applied Anthropologist · Research Archaeologist · Researcher · Anthropologist · Archeologist · Ethnoarchaeologist · Investigator
Related jobs
What these numbers mean
The score is the share of this job’s work, weighted by how important and frequent each task is, that AI could do in half the time: tasks an AI model could do alone count in full, tasks that need software built on AI count half.
“AI already used” is the share of the work in tasks where people are recorded using AI today. “As AI tools mature” counts every task AI could halve, with or without extra software.
The percentile compares the score with every job’s, weighted by how many people in the US do each one. Exposure means AI could change how the work is done, not that the job goes away. These are estimates for the typical job, not predictions.
Sources
- O*NET 31.0 Database, U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration
- GPTs are GPTs: Labor market impact potential of LLMs (task labels), Eloundou, Manning, Mishkin & Rock (2023), OpenAI and University of Pennsylvania
- Anthropic Economic Index: labor market impacts (task penetration), Anthropic
- Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 (national and metropolitan areas), U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics