Job Check
Explosives Workers, Ordnance Handling Experts, and Blasters
Place and detonate explosives to demolish structures or to loosen, remove, or displace earth, rock, or other materials. May perform specialized handling, storage, and accounting procedures.
10 main tasks · most important first
Your main tasks and AI
Importance- 01Examine blast areas to determine amounts and kinds of explosive charges needed and to ensure that safety laws are observed.Mostly human for now
- 02Tie specified lengths of delaying fuses into patterns in order to time sequences of explosions.Mostly human for now
- 03Place safety cones around blast areas to alert other workers of danger zones, and signal workers as necessary to ensure that they clear blast sites prior to explosions.Mostly human for now
- 04Place explosive charges in holes or other spots; then detonate explosives to demolish structures or to loosen, remove, or displace earth, rock, or other materials.Mostly human for now
- 05Insert, pack, and pour explosives, such as dynamite, ammonium nitrate, black powder, or slurries into blast holes; then shovel drill cuttings, admit water into boreholes, and tamp material to compact charges.Mostly human for now
- 06Mark patterns, locations, and depths of charge holes for drilling, and issue drilling instructions.Mostly human for now
- 07Compile and keep gun and explosives records in compliance with local and federal laws.AI could speed this up a lot
- 08Measure depths of drilled blast holes, using weighted tape measures.Mostly human for now
- 09Connect electrical wire to primers, and cover charges or fill blast holes with clay, drill chips, sand, or other material.Mostly human for now
- 10Lay primacord between rows of charged blast holes, and tie cord into main lines to form blast patterns.Mostly human for now
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 6% 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.
- Examine blast areas to determine amounts and kinds of explosive charges needed and to ensure that safety laws are observed.
- Tie specified lengths of delaying fuses into patterns in order to time sequences of explosions.
- Place safety cones around blast areas to alert other workers of danger zones, and signal workers as necessary to ensure that they clear blast sites prior to explosions.