Can Agents Work?

Jobs / Science and research / 19-1011.00

Animal Scientists

Conduct research in the genetics, nutrition, reproduction, growth, and development of domestic farm animals.

US jobs
3,100
Median wage
$68,940 a year
Job family
Science and research

Can agents do the work of animal scientists?

We read the evidence at the level of the job family, Science and research:

  • Task levelPartialThin evidence. CORE-Bench asks agents to reproduce the results of published papers in computer science, social science, and medicine from the authors' code and data. Princeton's HAL team declared it solved in December 2025: Claude Code with Claude Opus 4.5 scored 95.5% after manual regrading. No benchmark in our collection tests new experiments or lab work.
  • Project levelNot yetThin evidence. On PaperBench, where agents replicate machine learning papers from scratch, the best official result is 26.0% (o1, April 2025). On a small subset, ML PhDs scored 41.4% against o1's 26.6%. No newer official results exist, and no benchmark tests research projects in other sciences.

Benchmarks for the job family

These cover work in science and research, not always this occupation's tasks.

  • CORE-Benchby Princeton UniversityTask level · CORE-Bench-Hard accuracy (public test set)
    95.5%Claude Code + Claude Opus 4.5 (after manual regrading) · 3 Dec 2025
    Solved
  • PaperBenchby OpenAIProject level · Average replication score
    26%IterativeAgent o1-high (36h limit) · 2 Apr 2025
    Emerging

Typical tasks

From O*NET 31.0. Core tasks first. Few of these tasks have a benchmark today.

  • Study nutritional requirements of animals and nutritive values of animal feed materials.
  • Write up or orally communicate research findings to the scientific community, producers, and the public.
  • Develop improved practices in feeding, housing, sanitation, or parasite and disease control of animals.
  • Advise producers about improved products and techniques that could enhance their animal production efforts.
  • Conduct research concerning animal nutrition, breeding, or management to improve products or processes.
  • Study effects of management practices, processing methods, feed, or environmental conditions on quality and quantity of animal products, such as eggs and milk.
  • Research and control animal selection and breeding practices to increase production efficiency and improve animal quality.
  • Determine genetic composition of animal populations and heritability of traits, using principles of genetics.
  • Crossbreed animals with existing strains or cross strains to obtain new combinations of desirable characteristics.
Other job titles for this occupation (27)

Animal Nutrition Consultant · Animal Nutritionist · Animal Scientist · Beef Cattle Nutritionist · Beef Cattle Specialist · Companion Animal Nutritionist · Dairy Nutrition Consultant · Dairy Research Nutritionist · Research Scientist · Scientist · Animal Anatomist · Animal Behaviorist · Animal Biologist · Animal Geneticist · Bacteriologist · Behaviorist · Dairy Bacteriologist · Dairy Nutrition Specialist · Dairy Scientist · Nutrition Partner · Nutrition Specialist · Poultry Scientist · Sericulturist · Swine Extension Field Specialist · Swine Genetics Researcher · Swine Nutritionist · Swine Specialist