AI exposure: Cleaners of Vehicles and Equipment
Wash or otherwise clean vehicles, machinery, and other equipment. Use such materials as water, cleaning agents, brushes, cloths, and hoses.
Reading this score
computedAt 9.6% of weighted task load, Cleaners of Vehicles and Equipment sits at the 13th percentile, below the point where a job's centre of gravity has moved. 83.6% of what this role does is untouched, meaning current systems cannot produce that work at all, whatever the commercial incentive.
What holds the line here is embodiment. Across this occupation's 20 tasks it averages 2.75 out of 3, the highest of the five friction dimensions. In plain terms, the work has to happen in physical space. A language model cannot move matter. Until the robotics to do this work is both good enough and cheap enough to deploy widely, capability in software does not reach it.
The most exposed thing this job does is Maintain inventories of supplies, at 55.0%. The least is Fit boot spoilers, side skirts, or mud flaps to cars, at 0.0%. A gap of 55.0% between two parts of the same job is the reason this index publishes at task level. An occupation-wide number would have hidden both.
Within transportation and material moving occupations, this one is less exposed than the median of 24.3% across the group's 52 roles, with 45 scoring higher. Being in an exposed family does not make a particular job exposed, and the reverse holds too.
What would move this score. Of 20 tasks, 4 are currently banded exposed, 0 assisted and 16 untouched. For that distribution to shift materially would take robotics cheap and reliable enough to deploy at scale, not a better language model. The score is re-computed every quarter against a fresh capability reference, and the change is published rather than quietly applied.
Where the score comes from
judgedEvery task is scored through the standardised work activities it maps to. These are this occupation’s averages on the six rubric dimensions. Capability is what AI can do; the other five are what stands in the way.
| Dimension | Mean | Scale |
|---|---|---|
| Capability | 0.62 | 0-4 |
| Embodiment | 2.75 | 0-3 |
| Presence | 0.20 | 0-3 |
| Accountability | 0.62 | 0-3 |
| Context | 0.70 | 0-3 |
| Verification cost | 0.97 | 0-3 |
Task by task
20 tasks, O*NET 31.0| Task | Exposed | Assisted | Untouched | Importance | Band |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Maintain inventories of supplies. | 55.0% | 20.0% | 25.0% | 3.70 | exposed |
| Turn valves or disconnect hoses to eliminate water, cleaning solutions, or vapors from machinery or tanks. | 33.3% | 16.7% | 50.0% | 3.64 | exposed |
| Turn valves or handles on equipment to regulate pressure or flow of water, air, steam, or abrasives from sprayer nozzles. | 33.3% | 16.7% | 50.0% | 3.63 | exposed |
| Monitor operation of cleaning machines and stop machines or notify supervisors when malfunctions occur. | 33.3% | 29.2% | 37.5% | 3.59 | exposed |
| Press buttons to activate cleaning equipment or machines. | 13.3% | 11.7% | 75.0% | 3.52 | untouched |
| Inspect parts, equipment, or vehicles for cleanliness, damage, and compliance with standards or regulations. | 10.0% | 15.0% | 75.0% | 3.88 | untouched |
| Drive vehicles to or from workshops or customers' workplaces or homes. | 6.7% | 18.3% | 75.0% | 3.93 | untouched |
| Rinse objects and place them on drying racks or use cloth, squeegees, or air compressors to dry surfaces. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.99 | untouched |
| Apply paints, dyes, polishes, reconditioners, waxes, or masking materials to vehicles to preserve, protect, or restore color or condition. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.97 | untouched |
| Clean and polish vehicle windows. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.94 | untouched |
| Scrub, scrape, or spray machine parts, equipment, or vehicles, using scrapers, brushes, clothes, cleaners, disinfectants, insecticides, acid, abrasives, vacuums, or hoses. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.91 | untouched |
| Mix cleaning solutions, abrasive compositions, or other compounds, according to formulas. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.74 | untouched |
| Pre-soak or rinse machine parts, equipment, or vehicles by immersing objects in cleaning solutions or water, manually or using hoists. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.66 | untouched |
| Sweep, shovel, or vacuum loose debris or salvageable scrap into containers and remove containers from work areas. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.59 | untouched |
| Connect hoses or lines to pumps or other equipment. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.35 | untouched |
| Clean the plastic work inside cars, using paintbrushes. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.90 | untouched |
| Disassemble and reassemble machines or equipment or remove and reattach vehicle parts or trim, using hand tools. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.73 | untouched |
| Lubricate machinery, vehicles, or equipment or perform minor repairs or adjustments, using hand tools. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.53 | untouched |
| Transport materials, equipment, or supplies to or from work areas, using carts or hoists. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.30 | untouched |
| Fit boot spoilers, side skirts, or mud flaps to cars. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 2.84 | untouched |
Task text and importance ratings sourced from O*NET 31.0. Shares computed. The occupation score is the importance-weighted mean.
Occupations either side of this one
The four closest scores in the same occupational family, then the four closest anywhere in the index.
Read this carefully. Exposure is not displacement. A high score means current AI systems can produce this work, not that anyone will stop paying a person to do it. Adoption depends on economics, regulation and inertia that this index deliberately does not model. How the score is built.
What this means in practice
Most of this work is not reachable by current systems, so the immediate pressure is on the administrative edges of the role rather than its core: the scheduling, the reporting, the written records. That is where time is recovered.