{
  "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register",
  "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/underground-mining-machine-operators-all-other/",
  "methodology": "https://cookedindex.com/methodology",
  "notice": "Verdicts are re-examined as evidence accumulates. Re-fetch before relying on this; the page above always carries the current score.",
  "scored_at": "2026-08-11",
  "model": "claude-opus-5",
  "occupation": {
    "title": "Underground Mining Machine Operators, All Other",
    "soc_code": "47-5049",
    "category": "Construction",
    "us_employment": 3180,
    "median_annual_wage": 70130
  },
  "verdict": "EXPOSED",
  "risk_resistance": 54,
  "contested": false,
  "near_boundary": false,
  "dimensions": {
    "task_resistance": 13,
    "embodiment": 19,
    "liability_shield": 8,
    "trust_premium": 3,
    "judgment_accountability": 11
  },
  "reasoning": {
    "task_resistance": "Tramming a shuttle car through a 42-inch seam, setting temporary roof support, hanging ventilation curtain and rock-dusting by hand are not tasks a model can do — but the specific act of driving the machine is already being done from a remote console on continuous miners and longwalls, so the physical skill sits at 13 rather than 17: the environment resists, the operating position does not.",
    "embodiment": "You work under a roof that can converge on you, in an entry with methane, respirable dust, standing water and moving rib-to-rib equipment, crawling to reach the operator's deck — 19 rather than 20 only because a share of the shift is spent seated at controls rather than wrenching on the machine.",
    "liability_shield": "MSHA Part 48 new-miner and annual refresher training plus state certification (e.g. Kentucky/West Virginia mine-worker cards) mean an untrained body cannot legally be put on the machine, but you hold no professional licence, the mine foreman and certified examiners carry the statutory duties under 30 CFR 75, and the operator's card is a training credential rather than personal legal exposure — hence 8, not 13.",
    "trust_premium": "Tons on the belt and clean entries are the output; the section boss knows you by name and by production rate, but no customer chooses this mine because of which operator ran the shuttle car, so almost nothing above anonymous.",
    "judgment_accountability": "You read top, sound roof, decide when a place is unsafe and refuse to go under it — real 30 CFR authority — but the cut sequence, roof-control plan and ventilation plan are approved documents you execute, which caps discretion at 11 rather than the 15+ of the person who wrote those plans."
  },
  "rationale": "Nothing about running a shuttle car, roof bolter, or auxiliary underground machine in a low-seam, gassy, water-logged entry is close to solved by language AI — the work is physical, confined, and hostile to sensors. The real threat isn't ChatGPT, it's remote-operation and tele-remote mining equipment, which is already standard on longwall faces and continuous miners and pulls the operator out of the face and into a control booth, cutting headcount per production unit. MSHA training and certification create a real barrier to casual replacement, but they license the human, not the machine, and coal-sector employment decline is a bigger headwind than automation.",
  "outlook": "The work stays physical and stays underground, but expect fewer operators per ton as remote-controlled equipment spreads, with coal-market decline shrinking this small occupation faster than automation does.",
  "what_would_raise_it": {
    "levers": [
      {
        "dimension": "liability_shield",
        "change": "MSHA rulemaking (or a state board like WV's Board of Coal Mine Health and Safety) requiring that autonomous or tele-remote equipment operating in an active gassy entry be under the continuous supervision of a named certified miner/section foreman who signs the pre-shift and on-shift examination record for that equipment — extending the existing 30 CFR 75.360 examiner certification to cover machine autonomy states. Also plausible: a rule that roof-bolting or pillar-recovery in a retreat section cannot be conducted unattended, mirroring existing prohibitions on remote-control continuous miner operators being in the red zone.",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 5
      },
      {
        "dimension": "judgment_accountability",
        "change": "Task-mix shift plus explicit assignment: as tele-remote consoles consolidate several machines under one operator, the surviving role becomes reading roof/rib conditions, methane and ventilation changes, and calling stop-work — the withdrawal decision. If company safety programs or a UMWA contract clause name the console operator as the person with unilateral authority to halt production on adverse strata or gas readings (analogous to the miners' representative right under the Mine Act), the accountability weight rises rather than diffusing into the control room.",
        "plausibility": "already happening",
        "would_add": 4
      },
      {
        "dimension": "task_resistance",
        "change": "The routine tier — tramming a shuttle car on a fixed route, bolting on a planned pattern — is what remote and semi-autonomous systems take first. What is left is the non-standard tier: recovering a bogged or buried machine, working an irregular seam or fault, rehabbing bad roof, setting up in a new entry where no guidance infrastructure exists. If sensor performance in wet, dusty, low-seam conditions stays as poor as it currently is, the residual job is that exception work and the measured resistance rises even as headcount falls.",
        "plausibility": "already happening",
        "would_add": 3
      }
    ],
    "ceiling_note": "Every lever here raises the score of a shrinking job. Coal-sector employment decline and headcount consolidation per production unit are the dominant force; a role can become more displacement-resistant per worker while the number of workers drops. There is no plausible route to a trust premium — no buyer of coal or trona pays for a human at the controls."
  },
  "adjudication": null,
  "employment_history": {
    "points": [
      {
        "y": 2021,
        "emp": 3150,
        "wage": 61260
      },
      {
        "y": 2022,
        "emp": 2270,
        "wage": 64180
      },
      {
        "y": 2023,
        "emp": 2560,
        "wage": 68910
      },
      {
        "y": 2024,
        "emp": 3480,
        "wage": 67220
      },
      {
        "y": 2025,
        "emp": 3180,
        "wage": 70130
      }
    ],
    "from": 2021,
    "to": 2025,
    "change_pct": 1,
    "comparable_from": 2021,
    "spans_soc_revision": false
  },
  "pivots": [],
  "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms"
}