Conduct historical research, and publish or present findings and theories.

“Conduct historical research, and publish or present findings and theories.” is a core task performed by Historians. Among the occupation's 21 rated tasks, workers place it 13th by importance (#9 most important). About 91% of workers say it is relevant to their job.

This is a single occupation-specific task statement from O*NET. The figures below describe how central the task is to the job and what independent studies measure about AI and this kind of work — not a prediction that the task will be automated.

Work activities this task rolls up to

O*NET groups concrete tasks into broader work activities shared across many occupations.

• Research historical or social issues. in Getting Information

AI exposure

The OpenAI / Eloundou “GPTs are GPTs” study rates this task E2. Exposure with tools — software built on top of a language model (not the model alone) could cut the time by at least half.

Exposure measures whether a model could meaningfully speed the task up — it is an estimate of overlap with model capabilities, not a measure of whether the work will be done by software. The study's intermediate score (β) for this task is 0.50. Automation potential label: T1.

How AI is actually used on this kind of task

The Anthropic Economic Index observes how people actually use AI on tasks like this one across millions of real conversations.

• 0.017% share of AI-use records mapped to this task
• Most common interaction: learning
• Average autonomy of the AI: 3.5 (1–5; higher = more autonomous)
• 97% of interactions still needed a human in the loop

Observed AI use describes people choosing to use AI as a tool on this kind of task today. It is augmentation and assistance, not a measure of jobs replaced.

Working with AI vs. handing it off

Of the AI conversations mapped to this task, the split between people working alongside AI and people delegating the task to it.

How people interact with AI on this task

Other tasks in this occupation

• Gather historical data from sources such as archives, court records, diaries, news files, and photographs, as well as from books, pamphlets, and periodicals. · importance 4.2
• Organize data, and analyze and interpret its authenticity and relative significance. · importance 4.0
• Prepare publications and exhibits, or review those prepared by others, to ensure their historical accuracy. · importance 3.9
• Organize information for publication and for other means of dissemination, such as via storage media or the Internet. · importance 3.9
• Conduct historical research as a basis for the identification, conservation, and reconstruction of historic places and materials. · importance 3.9
• Conserve and preserve manuscripts, records, and other artifacts. · importance 3.9
• Research the history of a particular country or region, or of a specific time period. · importance 3.8
• Present historical accounts in terms of individuals or social, ethnic, political, economic, or geographic groupings. · importance 3.8
• Determine which topics to research, or pursue research topics specified by clients or employers. · importance 3.7
• Recommend actions related to historical art, such as which items to add to a collection or which items to display in an exhibit. · importance 3.6
• Coordinate activities of workers engaged in cataloging and filing materials. · importance 3.6
• Research and prepare manuscripts in support of public programming and the development of exhibits at historic sites, museums, libraries, and archives. · importance 3.6
• Collect detailed information on individuals for use in biographies. · importance 3.6
• Speak to various groups, organizations, and clubs to promote the aims and activities of historical societies. · importance 3.4

See all tasks on the Historians page.

Sources for this page

Every figure above traces to a named public dataset and the exact release below — not hand-written opinion. See the full methodology for what each measure does and does not mean.

• O*NET 30.3 U.S. Department of Labor / National Center for O*NET Development
• Anthropic Economic Index v4 (2026-01-15) + v2 (2025-03-27) Anthropic
• “GPTs are GPTs” (Eloundou et al.) arXiv 2303.10130 OpenAI / academic

Data compiled June 2, 2026. Figures are estimates, not advice.

@misc{singulariki-task-3722,
  title  = {Conduct historical research, and publish or present findings and theories.},
  author = {{Singulariki}},
  year   = {2026},
  note   = {O*NET 30.3; Anthropic Economic Index v4 (2026-01-15) + v2 (2025-03-27); “GPTs are GPTs” (Eloundou et al.) arXiv 2303.10130. Accessed June 7, 2026},
  url    = {https://singulariki.com/tasks/task-3722}
}