Job Check
Roustabouts, Oil and Gas
Assemble or repair oil field equipment using hand and power tools. Perform other tasks as needed.
10 main tasks · most important first
Your main tasks and AI
Importance- 01Unscrew or tighten pipes, casing, tubing, and pump rods, using hand and power wrenches and tongs.Mostly human for now
- 02Dismantle and repair oil field machinery, boilers, and steam engine parts, using hand tools and power tools.Mostly human for now
- 03Guide cranes to move loads about decks.Mostly human for now
- 04Walk flow lines to locate leaks, using electronic detectors and by making visual inspections, and repair the leaks.Mostly human for now
- 05Lay gas and oil pipelines.No rating yet
- 06Bolt together pump and engine parts.Mostly human for now
- 07Move pipes to and from trucks, using truck winches and motorized lifts, or by hand.Mostly human for now
- 08Clean trucks used in the fields.No rating yet
- 09Dig holes, set forms, and mix and pour concrete into forms to make foundations for wood or steel derricks.Mostly human for now
- 10Supply equipment to rig floors as requested and provide assistance to roughnecks.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
0%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 1% 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 74% 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.
- Unscrew or tighten pipes, casing, tubing, and pump rods, using hand and power wrenches and tongs.
- Dismantle and repair oil field machinery, boilers, and steam engine parts, using hand tools and power tools.
- Guide cranes to move loads about decks.