By:Victoria Brazil (@SocraticEM)

The convenience is welcome. The cost is worth naming.

Over the last few years, many of us have acquired a new reflex. Need a scenario? Ask AI. Need learning objectives, a debriefing plan, a feedback form, an abstract, a title, a summary? Ask AI. The work gets done. Faster. Often better than the version we would have written ourselves at 10 pm after a long day.

Ben Symon’s new commentary, On simulation, artificial intelligence, and the spirit of the Shokunin, asks us to pause before we celebrate too loudly. Drawing on the Japanese idea of the Shokunin – the artisan committed to patient, lifelong mastery – Ben reminds us that expertise is built through repetition, friction, failure, revision and the slightly painful business of doing the work ourselves.

It is also beautifully written. Ben has a gift for making simulation scholarship feel humane rather than mechanical. His 2019 post about the simulation hidden curriculum was similarly thoughtful. He writes with curiosity and humility, inviting us into the argument. This is not a defensive essay about protecting old ways of working, but a thoughtful provocation about what we might lose when everything becomes easier.

This tension is not unique to simulation. Sweden’s recent retreat from highly digital schooling, with renewed investment in printed books, handwriting and quiet reading, reflects a broader anxiety: when technology makes the task easier, what foundational capabilities are no longer being practised?

Clinician educators will recognise the issue. We know that struggle can be productive, for our learners, but also for ourselves. Adaptive expertise is forged in the space between attempt and answer. Ben’s provocation has had me reaching for my pen, and revisiting my cursive writing. But, at the other end of my personal spectrum, I’ve almost stopped typing – because now I use Whisprflow.ai to dictate all my emails and writing.

The question is not whether we should use AI. Of course we should. The better question is: which parts of our craft must remain slow, human and inconvenient enough to keep us becoming better?

References

Symon, B. On simulation, artificial intelligence, and the spirit of the Shokunin. Adv Simul 11, 33 (2026). https://doi.org/10.1186/s41077-026-00435-w

Photo – AI generated

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