Some jobs let you choose a lot of things yourself. In some jobs, a mistake is a really big deal. Knowing both tells you where to be careful.
O*NET rates every job on how much freedom people have to make decisions and how bad the consequences of a mistake are. Plot roles on those two measures and you can see quickly where AI help is low-risk and where it needs care.
Combine Freedom to Make Decisions with Consequence of Error to place roles on a judgement-versus-stakes grid. High-freedom, high-consequence roles need decision support with strong human control. Low-consequence, high-frequency decisions are the natural first candidates for automation.
The two ratings
Freedom to Make Decisions asks how much decision-making freedom, without supervision, the job offers.
Consequence of Error asks how serious the result would usually be if the worker made a mistake that wasn't readily correctable.
Both are rated on a scale by people doing the work, so they're consistent across occupations and can be compared.
Putting them together
Draw a simple grid with freedom along one side and consequence along the other.
- Low freedom, low consequence: routine work with clear rules. Good candidates for automating whole decisions, with sampling to check quality.
- Low freedom, high consequence: rule-bound work where mistakes hurt, such as some compliance checks. Models can help, but every case needs a hard stop for anything unusual.
- High freedom, low consequence: varied judgement where mistakes are cheap. Good for AI that drafts or suggests, with the person choosing.
- High freedom, high consequence: expert judgement with real stakes. Decision support only, with clear human ownership and a decision record.
Using it with your own data
The ONET ratings describe the average for an occupation. Ask your own people the same two questions about their own role and compare. Where your answers differ a lot from ONET's, find out why. Often it reveals a local rule, a missing control, or work that's been pushed onto a role without anyone deciding it should be.