Will AI replace Food Scientists and Technologists?
Estimated risk score: 40 out of 100
Lower 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 (21 to 59).
For the occupation as a whole, from ratings of its 13 O*NET tasks published in 2023 and calibrated to our hand scores. A specialty inside it can sit higher or lower.
O*NET-SOC 19-1012.00 · Life, Physical, and Social Science
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: 1 of its 13 rated tasks. In O*NET’s words.
- Stay up to date on new regulations and current events regarding food science by reviewing scientific literature.
Tasks rated in 2023 as not sped up by AI
Tasks such a model was rated as not speeding up or taking over: 4 of its 13 rated tasks. In O*NET’s words.
- Demonstrate products to clients.
- Inspect food processing areas to ensure compliance with government regulations and standards for sanitation, safety, quality, and waste management.
- Study methods to improve aspects of foods, such as chemical composition, flavor, color, texture, nutritional value, and convenience.
- Study the structure and composition of food or the changes foods undergo in storage and processing.
What the job is
Use chemistry, microbiology, engineering, and other sciences to study the principles underlying the processing and deterioration of foods; analyze food content to determine levels of vitamins, fat, sugar, and protein; discover new food sources; research ways to make processed foods safe, palatable, and healthful; and apply food science knowledge to determine best ways to process, package, preserve, store, and distribute food.
Also called: Research Chef, Food Scientist, Food Technologist, Food and Drug Research Scientist, Enologist, Flavorist, Crop Advisor, Food Engineer.
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