AI exposure: 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.
Reading this score
computedAt 11.3% of weighted task load, Earth Drillers, Except Oil and Gas sits at the 17th percentile, below the point where a job's centre of gravity has moved. 80.6% of what this role does is untouched, meaning current systems cannot produce that work at all, whatever the commercial incentive.
What holds the line here is embodiment. Across this occupation's 29 tasks it averages 2.60 out of 3, the highest of the five friction dimensions. In plain terms, the work has to happen in physical space. A language model cannot move matter. Until the robotics to do this work is both good enough and cheap enough to deploy widely, capability in software does not reach it.
The most exposed thing this job does is Select the appropriate drill for the job, at 50.0%. The least is Retract augers to force discharge dirt from holes, at 0.0%. A gap of 50.0% between two parts of the same job is the reason this index publishes at task level. An occupation-wide number would have hidden both.
Within construction and extraction occupations, this one is more exposed than most. The median across the 61 roles in the group is 5.0%, and only 9 of them score higher than this. Occupational families are not uniform, and the spread inside them is often wider than the gap between them.
What would move this score. Of 29 tasks, 4 are currently banded exposed, 2 assisted and 23 untouched. For that distribution to shift materially would take robotics cheap and reliable enough to deploy at scale, not a better language model. The score is re-computed every quarter against a fresh capability reference, and the change is published rather than quietly applied.
Where the score comes from
judgedEvery task is scored through the standardised work activities it maps to. These are this occupation’s averages on the six rubric dimensions. Capability is what AI can do; the other five are what stands in the way.
| Dimension | Mean | Scale |
|---|---|---|
| Capability | 0.79 | 0-4 |
| Embodiment | 2.60 | 0-3 |
| Presence | 0.63 | 0-3 |
| Accountability | 1.18 | 0-3 |
| Context | 1.31 | 0-3 |
| Verification cost | 1.76 | 0-3 |
Task by task
29 tasks, O*NET 31.0| Task | Exposed | Assisted | Untouched | Importance | Band |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Select the appropriate drill for the job, using knowledge of rock or soil conditions. | 50.0% | 25.0% | 25.0% | 4.07 | exposed |
| Document geological formations encountered during work. | 50.0% | 25.0% | 25.0% | 4.06 | exposed |
| Record drilling progress and geological data. | 50.0% | 25.0% | 25.0% | 3.98 | exposed |
| Create and lay out designs for drill and blast patterns. | 45.0% | 30.0% | 25.0% | 4.22 | exposed |
| Review client requirements and proposed locations for drilling operations to determine feasibility, and to determine cost estimates. | 31.2% | 31.2% | 37.5% | 3.89 | assisted |
| Select and attach drill bits and drill rods, adding more rods as hole depths increase, and changing drill bits as needed. | 22.5% | 15.0% | 62.5% | 4.25 | untouched |
| Design well pumping systems. | 20.0% | 30.0% | 50.0% | 3.66 | assisted |
| Pour water into wells, or pump water or slush into wells to cool drill bits and to remove drillings. | 16.7% | 8.3% | 75.0% | 4.33 | untouched |
| Perform pumping tests to assess well performance. | 10.0% | 15.0% | 75.0% | 3.75 | untouched |
| Drive or guide truck-mounted equipment into position, level and stabilize rigs, and extend telescoping derricks. | 8.3% | 16.7% | 75.0% | 4.24 | untouched |
| Drive trucks, tractors, or truck-mounted drills to and from work sites. | 8.3% | 16.7% | 75.0% | 4.00 | untouched |
| Monitor drilling operations, by checking gauges and listening to equipment to assess drilling conditions and to determine the need to adjust drilling or alter equipment. | 5.0% | 20.0% | 75.0% | – | untouched |
| Operate controls to stabilize machines and to position and align drills. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.36 | untouched |
| Start, stop, and control drilling speed of machines and insertion of casings into holes. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.33 | untouched |
| Regulate air pressure, rotary speed, and downward pressure, according to the type of rock or concrete being drilled. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.30 | untouched |
| Operate machines to flush earth cuttings or to blow dust from holes. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.21 | untouched |
| Verify depths and alignments of boring positions. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.10 | untouched |
| Perform routine maintenance and upgrade work on machines and equipment, such as replacing parts, building up drill bits, and lubricating machinery. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.10 | untouched |
| Assemble and position machines, augers, casing pipes, and other equipment, using hand and power tools. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.99 | untouched |
| Retrieve lost equipment from bore holes, using retrieval tools and equipment. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.97 | untouched |
| Fabricate well casings. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.38 | untouched |
| Place and install screens, casings, pumps, and other well fixtures to develop wells. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.14 | untouched |
| Operate water-well drilling rigs and other equipment to drill, bore, and dig for water wells or for environmental assessment purposes. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.03 | untouched |
| Drill or bore holes in rock for blasting, grouting, anchoring, or building foundations. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.82 | untouched |
| Disinfect, reconstruct, and redevelop contaminated wells and water pumping systems, and clean and disinfect new wells in preparation for use. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.70 | untouched |
| Signal crane operators to move equipment. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.50 | untouched |
| Withdraw drill rods from holes, and extract core samples. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.46 | untouched |
| Inspect core samples to determine nature of strata, or take samples to laboratories for analysis. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.44 | untouched |
| Retract augers to force discharge dirt from holes. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.40 | untouched |
Task text and importance ratings sourced from O*NET 31.0. Shares computed. The occupation score is the importance-weighted mean. 1 task(s) lacked a usable O*NET weight and are shown but excluded from the weighting.
Occupations either side of this one
The four closest scores in the same occupational family, then the four closest anywhere in the index.
Read this carefully. Exposure is not displacement. A high score means current AI systems can produce this work, not that anyone will stop paying a person to do it. Adoption depends on economics, regulation and inertia that this index deliberately does not model. How the score is built.
What this means in practice
Most of this work is not reachable by current systems, so the immediate pressure is on the administrative edges of the role rather than its core: the scheduling, the reporting, the written records. That is where time is recovered.