Will AI replace Loading and Moving Machine Operators, Underground Mining?
AI reaches little of this job’s work.
6/100
Low exposure
More exposed to AI than 12% of US workers.
- AI already used in
- 0% of the work
- As AI tools mature: up to
- 13% of the work
What the job involves
Operate underground loading or moving machine to load or move coal, ore, or rock using shuttle or mine car or conveyors. Equipment may include power shovels, hoisting engines equipped with cable-drawn scraper or scoop, or machines equipped with gathering arms and conveyor.
Where AI reaches the work
The job’s main tasks, heaviest first, by how far AI reaches them.
Within reach(4)
- Monitor loading processes to ensure that materials are loaded according to specifications.
- Maintain records of materials moved.
- Read written instructions or confer with supervisors about schedules and materials to be moved.
- Observe and record car numbers, carriers, customers, tonnages, and grades and conditions of material.
Out of reach(21)
- Drive loaded shuttle cars to ramps and move controls to discharge loads into mine cars or onto conveyors.
- Examine roadway and clear obstructions from the path of travel.
- Observe hand signals, grade stakes, or other markings when operating machines.
- Handle high voltage sources and hang electrical cables.
- Control conveyors that run the entire length of shuttle cars to distribute loads as loading progresses.
and 16 more
Also called
Coal Hauler Operator · Equipment Operator · Load Haul Dump Operator (LHD Operator) · Buggy Man · Coke Loader · Continuous Miner Operator · Joy Loader · LHD Operator
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