Job Check
Earth Drillers, Except Oil and Gas
Operate a variety of drills such as rotary, churn, and pneumatic to tap subsurface water and salt deposits, to remove core samples during mineral exploration or soil testing, and to facilitate the use of explosives in mining or construction. Includes horizontal and earth boring machine operators.
10 main tasks · most important first
Your main tasks and AI
Importance- 01Operate controls to stabilize machines and to position and align drills.Mostly human for now
- 02Start, stop, and control drilling speed of machines and insertion of casings into holes.Mostly human for now
- 03Regulate air pressure, rotary speed, and downward pressure, according to the type of rock or concrete being drilled.Mostly human for now
- 04Select and attach drill bits and drill rods, adding more rods as hole depths increase, and changing drill bits as needed.Mostly human for now
- 05Drive or guide truck-mounted equipment into position, level and stabilize rigs, and extend telescoping derricks.Mostly human for now
- 06Operate machines to flush earth cuttings or to blow dust from holes.Mostly human for now
- 07Verify depths and alignments of boring positions.Mostly human for now
- 08Perform routine maintenance and upgrade work on machines and equipment, such as replacing parts, building up drill bits, and lubricating machinery.Mostly human for now
- 09Select the appropriate drill for the job, using knowledge of rock or soil conditions.Mostly human for now
- 10Document geological formations encountered during work.AI could speed this up a lot
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 lossToo little dataNot enough work use was seen to measure. This does not mean the job is safe from AI.Anthropic, 2026
14%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 9% 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 93% 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
The main tasks with no real AI use seen and no big speed-up expected. This is where your skill counts most today.
- Operate controls to stabilize machines and to position and align drills.
- Start, stop, and control drilling speed of machines and insertion of casings into holes.
- Regulate air pressure, rotary speed, and downward pressure, according to the type of rock or concrete being drilled.