I do. If too many of our apprentices don’t actually learn how to work the forge, how ready will they be to take over as masters someday themselves?

I can see how ChatGPT was useful to the grandparent today, but got very disturbed by what it might portend for tomorrow. Not because of job loss and automation, like many people worry, but because of spoiled training and practice opportunities.

I liked your take, so I’d be curious to hear what you think.

Looking forward to the Y2K levels of highly paid consulting work becoming available now you mention it

We've long since reached the point at which no one can be said to be a true polymath ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Man_Who_Knew_Everythi... ). Having lost the ability as individuals to know something about everything, we're now losing the ability to know everything about anything.

The best answer is really if you ask chatGPT "how has the forging of steel progressed since it was invented?".

To me, you are basically worried for no reason about what happens when the apprentices no longer spends their time heating and hammering iron to remove impurities and increase carbon content. There is a trade off involved here. I am sure the apprentices of old understood at a base level what was really going on in the forge better than a modern apprentice but that hardly is an argument against progress.