Canada

I will admit I do not work in trades so I won't pretend to, but I am aware of licensure and unions. To this you are correct they are a great strength and benefit to these fields and jobs that have really helped these individuals retain their jobs and skills. With robotics and AI specifically no they cannot replace these individuals currently; however, there has been a push to deregulate which would not overnight ruin these careers but it will encroach. We can see an example of this in Texas where they removed the requirement of bar exam for legal jobs, and we have seen more of a push to use non traditional means in this position. So while I agree these jobs have some current protection it may be only temporary if these are the same people who are willing to trash other career fields over automation. We do have a bit of a gray area though around the remote form of robotics that are controlled by a human possibly even one with licensure.

I have however work in robotics. Most robots are exactly as you say in a factory and not really that capable, but this is very rapidly changing as we create robots more and more capable of general tasks and dexterity. The robots that I have seen designed specifically for HVAC jobs are not particularly great yet compared to their human counterparts are very skilled at the few things they can currently do and I'm not talking about like ones in a factory I'm talking about ones deployed on a home call to work on someone's air-conditioning system. These are the ones that I am concerned about, and for those that aren't you will be. It very well could be long in the future but companies are taking steps to do this as soon as they can and it spreads so far beyond just trade jobs.

The current state of AI as LLMs is pretty low risk as far as I am concerned for any skilled worker. Won't change any time soon either, but we know why they are doing this. Our corporations have exposed their true end motives. They full and well would rid themselves of every employee if they could. None of us know what the future is going to look like, but thinking it's not going to spread beyond software or unskilled work is not going to end well. What starts as the incapable robot in a factory iteration after iteration is suddenly capable. We now have the tech to make these a reality where even half a decade before we did not. The only hurdle is the legal side of things to which we see movement to dismantle even if only a little at a time. Most people seem concerned about full on automation/AI but that's not the near term threat. It's remote physical labor. Again look at the medical field and 7/11 using robots to restock their shelves. Neither of those are AI, but are taking jobs from the US annually. One at a time step by step headcounts are reduced. This won't be a sudden torrent, but a trickle.

apprentices start working immediately, led by licensed/ticketed journeymen

your language and approach to this make me think you are not having this conversation in good faith, and are in fact attempting to sow confusion and uncertainty about how easy it is to join a trade and how significant the demand is

fin