Develop, operate, and maintain geographical information computer systems, including hardware, software, plotters, digitizers, printers, and video cameras.

“Develop, operate, and maintain geographical information computer systems, including hardware, software, plotters, digitizers, printers, and video cameras.” is a core task performed by Geographers. Among the occupation's 12 rated tasks, workers place it 5th by importance (#8 most important). About 80% of workers say it is relevant to their job.

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.

Work activities this task rolls up to

O*NET groups concrete tasks into broader work activities shared across many occupations.

• Design computer or information systems or applications. in Thinking Creatively

AI exposure

The OpenAI / Eloundou “GPTs are GPTs” study rates this task E1. Direct exposure — a language model could plausibly cut the time to do this task by at least half.

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 1.00. Automation potential label: T2.

Other tasks in this occupation

• Create and modify maps, graphs, or diagrams, using geographical information software and related equipment, and principles of cartography, such as coordinate systems, longitude, latitude, elevation, topography, and map scales. · importance 4.4
• Gather and compile geographic data from sources such as censuses, field observations, satellite imagery, aerial photographs, and existing maps. · importance 4.2
• Teach geography. · importance 4.2
• Write and present reports of research findings. · importance 4.1
• Provide geographical information systems support to the private and public sectors. · importance 3.9
• Analyze geographic distributions of physical and cultural phenomena on local, regional, continental, or global scales. · importance 3.8
• Study the economic, political, and cultural characteristics of a specific region's population. · importance 3.8
• Locate and obtain existing geographic information databases. · importance 3.8
• Collect data on physical characteristics of specified areas, such as geological formations, climates, and vegetation, using surveying or meteorological equipment. · importance 3.7
• Conduct field work at outdoor sites. · importance 3.6
• Provide consulting services in fields such as resource development and management, business location and market area analysis, environmental hazards, regional cultural history, and urban social planning. · importance 3.2

See all tasks on the Geographers 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-5505,
  title  = {Develop, operate, and maintain geographical information computer systems, including hardware, software, plotters, digitizers, printers, and video cameras.},
  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-5505}
}