Will AI replace Operating Engineers and Other Construction Equipment Operators?
Estimated risk score: 14 out of 100
Very low replacement risk
Estimate from published task research, not reviewed by a person · how we estimate
Within about 19 points for 4 in 5 of the jobs we checked (0 to 33).
For the occupation as a whole, from ratings of its 28 O*NET tasks published in 2023 and calibrated to our hand scores. A specialty inside it can sit higher or lower.
O*NET-SOC 47-2073.00 · Construction and Extraction
Tasks rated in 2023 as ones AI could do or speed up
Tasks a GPT-4-class model could do, or do in half the time or less: 1 of its 28 rated tasks. In O*NET’s words.
- Keep records of material or equipment usage or problems encountered.
Tasks rated in 2023 as not sped up by AI
Tasks such a model was rated as not speeding up or taking over: 26 of its 28 rated tasks; the first 6 are shown. In O*NET’s words.
- Adjust handwheels and depress pedals to control attachments, such as blades, buckets, scrapers, or swing booms.
- Align machines, cutterheads, or depth gauge makers with reference stakes and guidelines or ground or position equipment, following hand signals of other workers.
- Connect hydraulic hoses, belts, mechanical linkages, or power takeoff shafts to tractors.
- Coordinate machine actions with other activities, positioning or moving loads in response to hand or audio signals from crew members.
- Drive and maneuver equipment equipped with blades in successive passes over working areas to remove topsoil, vegetation, or rocks or to distribute and level earth or terrain.
- Load and move dirt, rocks, equipment, or other materials, using trucks, crawler tractors, power cranes, shovels, graders, or related equipment.
What the job is
Operate one or several types of power construction equipment, such as motor graders, bulldozers, scrapers, compressors, pumps, derricks, shovels, tractors, or front-end loaders to excavate, move, and grade earth, erect structures, or pour concrete or other hard surface pavement. May repair and maintain equipment in addition to other duties.
Also called: Heavy Equipment Operator (HEO), HEO, Hoe Runner, Road Grader, Land Leveler, Landfill HEO, Blade Operator, Crane Engineer.
Closest jobs we score by hand
In the same field (Construction and Extraction). Different jobs, each scored by a person.
Source. This site includes information from the O*NET 30.1 Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license. O*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. USDOL/ETA has not approved, endorsed, or tested these modifications. (O*NET, CC BY 4.0.) Task ratings: Eloundou, Manning, Mishkin and Rock (2023), “GPTs are GPTs: An Early Look at the Labor Market Impact Potential of Large Language Models”, data used under the MIT licence (licence texts). Our change: we averaged the ratings over this occupation’s tasks and calibrated them to our 0–100 scale. It is not a prediction about any one person and not career advice. Disagree? Write to hello@yourstopwashit.com. How we estimate