AI Stole My Job

Will AI replace Brickmasons and Blockmasons?

Estimated risk score: 13 out of 100

Very low replacement risk

Estimate from published task research, not reviewed by a person · how we estimate

Within about 19 points for 4 in 5 of the jobs we checked (0 to 32).

For the occupation as a whole, from ratings of its 14 O*NET tasks published in 2023 and calibrated to our hand scores. A specialty inside it can sit higher or lower.

O*NET-SOC 47-2021.00 · Construction and Extraction

Tasks rated in 2023 as ones AI could do or speed up

Tasks a GPT-4-class model could do, or do in half the time or less: 0 of its 14 rated tasks. In O*NET’s words.

None of its rated tasks.

Tasks rated in 2023 as not sped up by AI

Tasks such a model was rated as not speeding up or taking over: 13 of its 14 rated tasks; the first 6 are shown. In O*NET’s words.

  1. Apply and smooth mortar or other mixture over work surface.
  2. Break or cut bricks, tiles, or blocks to size, using trowel edge, hammer, or power saw.
  3. Clean working surface to remove scale, dust, soot, or chips of brick and mortar, using broom, wire brush, or scraper.
  4. Construct corners by fastening in plumb position a corner pole or building a corner pyramid of bricks, and filling in between the corners using a line from corner to corner to guide each course, or layer, of brick.
  5. Fasten or fuse brick or other building material to structure with wire clamps, anchor holes, torch, or cement.
  6. Measure distance from reference points and mark guidelines to lay out work, using plumb bobs and levels.

What the job is

Lay and bind building materials, such as brick, structural tile, concrete block, cinder block, glass block, and terra-cotta block, with mortar and other substances, to construct or repair walls, partitions, arches, sewers, and other structures.

Also called: Bricklayer, Block Layer, Brick and Block Mason, Reliner, Blockmason, Brickmason, Casing Man, Door Liner.

Closest jobs we score by hand

In the same field (Construction and Extraction). Different jobs, each scored by a person.

Source. This site includes information from the O*NET 30.1 Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license. O*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. USDOL/ETA has not approved, endorsed, or tested these modifications. (O*NET, CC BY 4.0.) Task ratings: Eloundou, Manning, Mishkin and Rock (2023), “GPTs are GPTs: An Early Look at the Labor Market Impact Potential of Large Language Models”, data used under the MIT licence (licence texts). Our change: we averaged the ratings over this occupation’s tasks and calibrated them to our 0–100 scale. It is not a prediction about any one person and not career advice. Disagree? Write to hello@yourstopwashit.com. How we estimate