Will AI replace Explosives Workers, Ordnance Handling Experts, and Blasters?
AI reaches little of this job’s work.
15/100
Low exposure
More exposed to AI than 28% of US workers.
- AI already used in
- 0% of the work
- As AI tools mature: up to
- 27% of the work
What the job involves
Place and detonate explosives to demolish structures or to loosen, remove, or displace earth, rock, or other materials. May perform specialized handling, storage, and accounting procedures.
Where AI reaches the work
The job’s main tasks, heaviest first, by how far AI reaches them.
Within reach(7)
- Examine blast areas to determine amounts and kinds of explosive charges needed and to ensure that safety laws are observed.
- Verify detonation of charges by observing control panels, or by listening for the sounds of blasts.
- Create and lay out designs for drill and blast patterns.
- Document geological formations encountered during work.
- Signal crane operators to move equipment.
and 2 more
Out of reach(20)
- Place explosive charges in holes or other spots; then detonate explosives to demolish structures or to loosen, remove, or displace earth, rock, or other materials.
- Connect electrical wire to primers, and cover charges or fill blast holes with clay, drill chips, sand, or other material.
- Place safety cones around blast areas to alert other workers of danger zones, and signal workers as necessary to ensure that they clear blast sites prior to explosions.
- Insert, pack, and pour explosives, such as dynamite, ammonium nitrate, black powder, or slurries into blast holes; then shovel drill cuttings, admit water into boreholes, and tamp material to compact charges.
- Mark patterns, locations, and depths of charge holes for drilling, and issue drilling instructions.
and 15 more
Also called
Blaster · Explosive Technician · Blast Setter · Dynamite Shooter · Dynamiter · Explosive Ordnance Handler · Tier and Detonator · Unexploded Ordnance Quality Control Worker
Related jobs
What these numbers mean
The score is the share of this job’s work, weighted by how important and frequent each task is, that AI could do in half the time: tasks an AI model could do alone count in full, tasks that need software built on AI count half.
“AI already used” is the share of the work in tasks where people are recorded using AI today. “As AI tools mature” counts every task AI could halve, with or without extra software.
The percentile compares the score with every job’s, weighted by how many people in the US do each one. Exposure means AI could change how the work is done, not that the job goes away. These are estimates for the typical job, not predictions.
Sources
- O*NET 31.0 Database, U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration
- GPTs are GPTs: Labor market impact potential of LLMs (task labels), Eloundou, Manning, Mishkin & Rock (2023), OpenAI and University of Pennsylvania
- Anthropic Economic Index: labor market impacts (task penetration), Anthropic
- Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 (national and metropolitan areas), U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics