We live in an age of generative AI services, and summarization services are appearing in large numbers. Everyone already knows this, so I hardly need to mention it, but ChatGPT can summarize a text for you, and services like Lillys summarize the content of YouTube videos.
No matter how far AI services advance, there is one ability you must never depend on them for: summarizing. To put it in a more impressive-sounding way, the ability to abstract. The moment a knowledge worker hands their ability to abstract over to someone else, their competitive edge will vanish fast. It's like an athlete having a robot lift the barbell they're supposed to lift, or a pianist having a robot play the pieces they're supposed to practice every day. You must never depend on someone else for your ability to abstract. You have to train it every day.
They say the ability to ask questions will matter even more in the coming era. I agree. That's exactly why the ability to abstract will become even more important. I mean the ability to look at an idea from a more macro perspective. An abstracted idea is easy to connect to the mental models I already have. An idea that has been abstracted and connected that way makes it easy to ask questions from a macro perspective, or to ask questions based on other ideas. (Isn't that how Zettelkasten permanent notes get connected?)
Also, if you keep using summarization services, you'll lose the patience to dig deeply into content. After all, just reading the summary makes you feel like you roughly know what it's about. (The Dunning-Kruger effect.) With any piece of content, the details actually matter. There's no point in knowing a superficial summary, because problems show up when you try to apply it.
Of course, there are moments when summarized content shines. It's when you want a rough idea of a particular concept, or when you're deciding whether to go deeper into a piece of content. After all, we live in an age of overwhelming information. You look at the summary, judge whether it's important to you right now, and decide whether to go further down the rabbit hole.