Will AI replace Molders, Shapers, and Casters, Except Metal and Plastic?
AI reaches little of this job’s work.
2/100
Low exposure
More exposed to AI than 5% of US workers.
- AI already used in
- 0% of the work
- As AI tools mature: up to
- 4% of the work
What the job involves
Mold, shape, form, cast, or carve products such as food products, figurines, tile, pipes, and candles consisting of clay, glass, plaster, concrete, stone, or combinations of materials.
Where AI reaches the work
The job’s main tasks, heaviest first, by how far AI reaches them.
Within reach(1)
- Select sizes and types of molds according to instructions.
Out of reach(23)
- Read work orders or examine parts to determine parts or sections of products to be produced.
- Trim or remove excess material, using scrapers, knives, or band saws.
- Clean, finish, and lubricate molds and mold parts.
- Align and assemble parts to produce completed products, using gauges and hand tools.
- Assemble, insert, and adjust wires, tubes, cores, fittings, rods, or patterns into molds, using hand tools and depth gauges.
and 18 more
Also called
Burial Vault Maker · Cigar Roller · Clay Modeler · Concrete Vault Maker · Glass Bender · Glass Block Bender · Glass Blower · Glass Presser
Related jobs
- Grinding and Polishing Workers, Hand6/100
- Molding, Coremaking, and Casting Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders, Metal and Plastic4/100
- Extruding, Forming, Pressing, and Compacting Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders9/100
- Foundry Mold and Coremakers0/100
- Cutting and Slicing Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders8/100
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