Operate drilling equipment.

Operate drilling equipment. is a detailed work activity in O*NET — a concrete unit of work shared across 2 occupations and seen in 7 occupation-specific tasks. It rolls up into the broader work activity Operate construction or excavation equipment. in Controlling Machines and Processes .

Detailed work activities are the most granular shared layer in O*NET's work-activity hierarchy (Generalized → Intermediate → Detailed → occupation-specific task). The figures below describe how this activity shows up across the economy and what independent studies measure about AI and this kind of work — not a prediction that the work will be automated.

AI exposure

Of the 7 tasks under this activity that the OpenAI / Eloundou “GPTs are GPTs” study rated, 0 (0%) are flagged as directly exposed to language models (E1) or exposed via model-powered tools (E2).

Exposure estimates overlap with model capabilities — whether a model could speed the task up — not whether the work will be done by software. Observed AI use is augmentation and assistance today, not jobs replaced.

Member tasks

Occupation-specific tasks O*NET maps to this detailed work activity, most important first.

• Observe pressure gauge and move throttles and levers to control the speed of rotary tables, and to regulate pressure of tools at bottoms of boreholes. · Rotary Drill Operators, Oil and Gas · importance 4.5 · no direct exposure
• Operate controls to stabilize machines and to position and align drills. · Earth Drillers, Except Oil and Gas · importance 4.4 · no direct exposure
• Start, stop, and control drilling speed of machines and insertion of casings into holes. · Earth Drillers, Except Oil and Gas · importance 4.3 · no direct exposure
• Regulate air pressure, rotary speed, and downward pressure, according to the type of rock or concrete being drilled. · Earth Drillers, Except Oil and Gas · importance 4.3 · no direct exposure
• Cap wells with packers, or turn valves, to regulate outflow of oil from wells. · Rotary Drill Operators, Oil and Gas · importance 4.1 · no direct exposure
• Operate water-well drilling rigs and other equipment to drill, bore, and dig for water wells or for environmental assessment purposes. · Earth Drillers, Except Oil and Gas · importance 4.0 · no direct exposure
• Retract augers to force discharge dirt from holes. · Earth Drillers, Except Oil and Gas · importance 3.4 · no direct exposure

Occupations that perform this

• Rotary Drill Operators, Oil and Gas
• Earth Drillers, Except Oil and Gas

Sources for this page

Every figure above traces to a named public dataset and the exact release below — not hand-written opinion. See the full methodology for what each measure does and does not mean.

• O*NET 30.3 U.S. Department of Labor / National Center for O*NET Development
• “GPTs are GPTs” (Eloundou et al.) arXiv 2303.10130 OpenAI / academic

Data compiled June 2, 2026. Figures are estimates, not advice.

@misc{singulariki-operate-drilling-equipment,
  title  = {Operate drilling equipment.},
  author = {{Singulariki}},
  year   = {2026},
  note   = {O*NET 30.3; “GPTs are GPTs” (Eloundou et al.) arXiv 2303.10130. Accessed June 7, 2026},
  url    = {https://singulariki.com/detailed-activities/operate-drilling-equipment}
}