When I was young, I had friend who was at medical school. In her flat was her bookcase, perhaps 4ft by 5. She explained that she had to learn, completely, the contents of the top two rows, and have a detailed working knowledge of the content of the books on all the others. There were many other texts in the medical school library of which she had to have knowledge. I used to talk about this with pilots who displayed poor technical knowledge. I’d struggle to fill one four-foot shelf with important written knowledge for a professional pilot, and we ask them for detailed knowledge of books which would perhaps only take twelve inches of shelf space, and yet some couldn’t manage it.
My own bookcase is about the size of the med school one, from Stinson’s ‘The Design of the ‘Aeroplane’ to ‘Chickenhawk’, from the 737 FCTM to ‘Human Error-by Design’, and with a full set of Dekker and Reason, to cover my specialist subject matter. Not showing off, just highlighting that there is plenty of knowledge to have at your physical fingertips, on paper.
And someone perhaps wants an AI to find the right bit of the OMB? I simply cannot be other than deeply unimpressed by that. Our profession is in decline, in large part, because we’re helping it to be so.