Forecast political, economic, and social trends.

“Forecast political, economic, and social trends.” is a core task performed by Political Scientists. Among the occupation's 14 rated tasks, workers place it 5th by importance (#10 most important). About 92% 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.

• Analyze market or industry conditions. in Analyzing Data or 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: T2.

Other tasks in this occupation

• Teach political science. · importance 4.6
• Develop and test theories, using information from interviews, newspapers, periodicals, case law, historical papers, polls, or statistical sources. · importance 4.5
• Maintain current knowledge of government policy decisions. · importance 4.5
• Disseminate research results through academic publications, written reports, or public presentations. · importance 4.3
• Advise political science students. · importance 4.2
• Collect, analyze, and interpret data, such as election results and public opinion surveys, reporting on findings, recommendations, and conclusions. · importance 4.0
• Interpret and analyze policies, public issues, legislation, or the operations of governments, businesses, and organizations. · importance 4.0
• Identify issues for research and analysis. · importance 3.9
• Serve on committees. · importance 3.1
• Consult with and advise government officials, civic bodies, research agencies, the media, political parties, and others concerned with political issues. · importance 2.7
• Evaluate programs and policies, and make related recommendations to institutions and organizations. · importance 2.7
• Provide media commentary or criticism related to public policy and political issues and events. · importance 2.6
• Write drafts of legislative proposals, and prepare speeches, correspondence, and policy papers for governmental use. · importance 2.2

See all tasks on the Political Scientists 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
• “GPTs are GPTs” (Eloundou et al.) arXiv 2303.10130 OpenAI / academic

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

@misc{singulariki-task-5524,
  title  = {Forecast political, economic, and social trends.},
  author = {{Singulariki}},
  year   = {2026},
  note   = {O*NET 30.3; “GPTs are GPTs” (Eloundou et al.) arXiv 2303.10130. Accessed June 7, 2026},
  url    = {https://singulariki.com/tasks/task-5524}
}