Operate dry-cleaning machines to clean soiled articles.

“Operate dry-cleaning machines to clean soiled articles.” is a supplemental task performed by Laundry and Dry-Cleaning Workers. Among the occupation's 32 rated tasks, workers place it 5th by importance (#28 most important).

This is a single occupation-specific task statement from O*NET. The figures below describe how central the task is to the job and what independent studies measure about AI and this kind of work — not a prediction that the task will be automated.

AI exposure

The OpenAI / Eloundou “GPTs are GPTs” study rates this task E0. No direct exposure — current language models give little or no time savings on this task.

Exposure measures whether a model could meaningfully speed the task up — it is an estimate of overlap with model capabilities, not a measure of whether the work will be done by software. The study's intermediate score (β) for this task is 0.00. Automation potential label: T0.

Other tasks in this occupation

• Load articles into washers or dry-cleaning machines, or direct other workers to perform loading. · importance 4.3
• Start washers, dry cleaners, driers, or extractors, and turn valves or levers to regulate machine processes and the volume of soap, detergent, water, bleach, starch, and other additives. · importance 4.3
• Apply bleaching powders to spots and spray them with steam to remove stains from fabrics that do not respond to other cleaning solvents. · importance 4.3
• Operate extractors and driers, or direct their operation. · importance 4.2
• Sort and count articles removed from dryers, and fold, wrap, or hang them. · importance 4.2
• Remove items from washers or dry-cleaning machines, or direct other workers to do so. · importance 4.2
• Clean machine filters, and lubricate equipment. · importance 4.2
• Examine and sort into lots articles to be cleaned, according to color, fabric, dirt content, and cleaning technique required. · importance 4.1
• Determine spotting procedures and proper solvents, based on fabric and stain types. · importance 4.1
• Spray steam, water, or air over spots to flush out chemicals, dry material, raise naps, or brighten colors. · importance 4.1
• Receive and mark articles for laundry or dry cleaning with identifying code numbers or names, using hand or machine markers. · importance 4.1
• Pre-soak, sterilize, scrub, spot-clean, and dry contaminated or stained articles, using neutralizer solutions and portable machines. · importance 4.0
• Mix bleaching agents with hot water in vats, and soak material until it is bleached. · importance 4.0
• Mix and add detergents, dyes, bleaches, starches, and other solutions and chemicals to clean, color, dry, or stiffen articles. · importance 3.9

See all tasks on the Laundry and Dry-Cleaning Workers page.

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-task-12129,
  title  = {Operate dry-cleaning machines to clean soiled articles.},
  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/tasks/task-12129}
}