Will AI replace Mining and Geological Engineers, Including Mining Safety Engineers?
AI reaches a large part of this job’s work.
50/100
High exposure
More exposed to AI than 80% of US workers.
- AI already used in
- 0% of the work
- As AI tools mature: up to
- 60% of the work
What the job involves
Conduct subsurface surveys to identify the characteristics of potential land or mining development sites. May specify the ground support systems, processes, and equipment for safe, economical, and environmentally sound extraction or underground construction activities. May inspect areas for unsafe geological conditions, equipment, and working conditions. May design, implement, and coordinate mine safety programs.
Where AI reaches the work
The job’s main tasks, heaviest first, by how far AI reaches them.
Within reach(10)
- Prepare technical reports for use by mining, engineering, and management personnel.
- Select locations and plan underground or surface mining operations, specifying processes, labor usage, and equipment that will result in safe, economical, and environmentally sound extraction of minerals and ores.
- Examine maps, deposits, drilling locations, or mines to determine the location, size, accessibility, contents, value, and potential profitability of mineral, oil, and gas deposits.
- Prepare schedules, reports, and estimates of the costs involved in developing and operating mines.
- Select or develop mineral location, extraction, and production methods, based on factors such as safety, cost, and deposit characteristics.
and 5 more
Out of reach(8)
- Inspect mining areas for unsafe structures, equipment, and working conditions.
- Design, implement, and monitor the development of mines, facilities, systems, or equipment.
- Supervise, train, and evaluate technicians, technologists, survey personnel, engineers, scientists or other mine personnel.
- Devise solutions to problems of land reclamation and water and air pollution, such as methods of storing excavated soil and returning exhausted mine sites to natural states.
- Lay out, direct, and supervise mine construction operations, such as the construction of shafts and tunnels.
and 3 more
Also called
Safety Engineer · Mining Engineer · Mine Engineer · Engineer · Exploration Engineer · Geophysical Engineer · Geotechnical Engineer · Mine Analyst
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