Job Check
Environmental Scientists and Specialists, Including Health
Conduct research or perform investigation for the purpose of identifying, abating, or eliminating sources of pollutants or hazards that affect either the environment or public health. Using knowledge of various scientific disciplines, may collect, synthesize, study, report, and recommend action based on data derived from measurements or observations of air, food, soil, water, and other sources.
10 main tasks · most important first
Your main tasks and AI
Importance- 01Communicate scientific or technical information to the public, organizations, or internal audiences through oral briefings, written documents, workshops, conferences, training sessions, or public hearings.AI could speed this up, with extra tools
- 02Monitor effects of pollution or land degradation and recommend means of prevention or control.AI could speed this up, with extra tools
- 03Collect, synthesize, analyze, manage, and report environmental data, such as pollution emission measurements, atmospheric monitoring measurements, meteorological or mineralogical information, or soil or water samples.People already use AI for this at work
- 04Review and implement environmental technical standards, guidelines, policies, and formal regulations that meet all appropriate requirements.AI could speed this up, with extra tools
- 05Provide scientific or technical guidance, support, coordination, or oversight to governmental agencies, environmental programs, industry, or the public.AI could speed this up, with extra tools
- 06Process and review environmental permits, licenses, or related materials.People already use AI for this at work
- 07Conduct environmental audits or inspections or investigations of violations.AI could speed this up, with extra tools
- 08Provide advice on proper standards and regulations or the development of policies, strategies, or codes of practice for environmental management.AI could speed this up, with extra tools
- 09Prepare charts or graphs from data samples, providing summary information on the environmental relevance of the data.AI could speed this up, with extra tools
- 10Research sources of pollution to determine their effects on the environment and to develop theories or methods of pollution abatement or control.AI could speed this up, with extra tools
Tasks from O*NET® 31.0 (US Department of Labor, CC BY 4.0, changed by us), most important first. “Already use” comes from Anthropic’s data on real work chats with Claude; “could speed up” from task ratings made with GPT-4 in 2023.
Four studies, side by side
None is a forecast of job loss6%of this job’s work time goes to tasks that people already do with Claude at work, counting tasks where AI only helps as half (2026).Anthropic, 2026
50%of this job’s tasks an AI model could do in half the time, counting tasks that need extra tools as half (rated in 2023).Eloundou, Manning, Mishkin and Rock, 2023
Above 59% of jobsin how often and how well AI helped with this job’s work in Microsoft Copilot chats (2024 data).Microsoft Research (Tomlinson et al.), 2025
Above 53% of jobsin how much of this job’s physical work robots have been shown to do, from factories to homes (2026).Anthropic, 2026
Your human edge
AI touches every main task of this job in some way. Your edge is judgment: knowing when AI’s work is right, and checking it before it counts.