Although most of us don’t understand how it does it, the truth is that artificial intelligence’s ability to summarize a fairly long text (novel, essay, report, or academic paper ) is astonishing. When time is short, the demands are many and varied, and since it’s so easy to turn to, how could we not ask for a little help from such a fast, easy, and free technology?

An AI-generated summary of a text can be very useful for quickly orienting yourself to its content. But it’s worth considering exactly what we’re saving and what the trade-offs are. Using these summaries to select relevant bibliography or teaching materials in a professional or research context isn’t the same as using ChatGPT to avoid required reading at school.

When AI is useful

There are school contexts where relying on AI can make a lot of sense. For example, if we’re asked to choose a book to read, we can get summaries or recommendations that give us criteria for our selection. Or it can help us obtain specific information for an assignment, as a guide for further study.

But if the task is precisely to read a book and summarize it in order to work on reading skills (something essential in primary school, but also necessary to practice and continue developing in secondary school and university), resorting to AI will save us time, but it will make us lose something that is even more precious: the development of critical thinking and cognitive and socio-emotional skills essential for learning.

Reliability issues

To begin with, AI summaries aren’t always completely reliable . There are so-called “hallucinations ,” that is, fabricated but plausible information that doesn’t appear in the original text at all. AI can generate inaccuracies such as confusing characters, dates, data, etc.

At a deeper level, it can include biases , by giving more weight to interpretations that are statistically more likely or those that were first presented in the text. Furthermore, AI tends to simplify the richness of interpretation, remaining literal and offering an incomplete or distorted view.

A task that allows the brain to grow

But even more important is the role that in-depth reading of entire books and summaries play in the learning process, especially for students who are still developing their reading skills.

In these cases, if we rely on AI to create summaries and stop reading the entire books, we may be limiting our cognitive and emotional development and our ability to learn.

Reading a book in its entirety involves much more than extracting information: it’s a complex activity that engages attention, memory, reasoning, and imagination . The process of deep reading allows us to perceive nuances, structures, and layers of meaning that are inevitably lost in a summary.

By favoring shortcuts and skimming, we weaken the cognitive connections that support sustained concentration and high-level comprehension.

The role of critical thinking

Beyond comprehension, comprehensive reading fosters critical thinking, as confronting arguments in all their complexity invites one to evaluate, question, and form one’s own judgments, rather than passively absorbing pre-digested content.

Direct contact with a text stimulates creativity and personal interpretation. Each reader constructs meaning through an active dialogue with the work, a process that is central to the literary experience.

When we read the entire book and summarize it without technological assistance, we will be strengthening metacognitive skills, which help us decide what to include, what to omit, and how to articulate ideas coherently. These skills promote retention and deep learning . Summarizing isn’t just about shortening a text; it’s about learning to think, and this skill can’t be delegated to AI.

The affective dimension of reading

Furthermore, the aesthetic and emotional dimension of reading and the pleasure derived from the rhythm of the prose, the narrative tension, or the identification with the characters cannot be replicated in a summary. This affective component is a key element in awakening and maintaining intrinsic motivation to read.

Various studies indicate that reading makes us happier and contributes to the development of empathy and emotional well-being, both in adolescence  and throughout life . Reading for pleasure from an early age is associated with better cognitive performance, better mental health, reduced stress, fewer behavioral problems, and increased attention span.

Reading, comprehension, synthesis skills, and critical thinking develop gradually throughout school. The use of tools like AI from an early age can interfere with this process. In addition to preventing or slowing down the consolidation of essential skills, resorting to it as a quick fix contributes to technodependency and the resulting loss of autonomy.

Moderate and responsible use

Artificial intelligence can be a valuable tool to support comprehension, guide reading, or facilitate access to certain content. But it should not be used as a substitute for the act of reading, especially at school age. This is a crucial period for acquiring reading, critical thinking, and analytical skills and for promoting reading habits.

Reading is a profound, personal, and formative experience that can’t be reduced to data or summaries; it involves reflection, interpretation, and emotional connection. Using AI judiciously can enrich the process, but it can never replace the irreplaceable value of engaging the text directly.

Author Bio: Esther Nieto Moreno de Diezmas is Professor and Director of the Department of Modern Philology at the University of Castilla-La Mancha