Smart Reading: AI as Your Best Ally

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Una versión en español de este artículo la puedes encontrar aquí.

I remember when I was a child in Mexico, there was constant talk about literacy as the instrument that would lift us out of poverty and overcome our limitations, highlighting the importance of ensuring every Mexican learned how to read. Since then, according to INEGI statistics, we’ve gone from a 17% illiteracy rate to 4.7% in 2020.

Yet, a concern I recall hearing even back then was that merely knowing how to read — understood as the basic act of linking graphemes with phonemes to form words — was insufficient. If you couldn’t grasp the meaning of each word, connect them together, and abstract complex ideas for learning and reflection, you automatically fell into a category known as functional illiteracy.

So, what good is knowing how to read if we don’t understand what we’re reading?

Unfortunately, this isn’t a problem confined to that era, nor unique to my country. While I lack precise data to confirm (or deny), I sense that even though the global number of illiterate individuals has decreased, the growing superficiality in how we consume information points to a worrying rise in functional illiteracy.

Deep reading has become an endangered art form. It’s not enough simply to read; we must know how to read.

In 1940, Mortimer Adler published **How to Read a Book**, an essential guide for anyone aiming to understand, analyze, and connect ideas through reading. Adler proposed four levels of reading:

Elementary or Basic Reading: aims at understanding literally what the text says.

Inspectional or Skimming Reading: seeks a quick, general overview of the text.

Analytical or Deep Reading: involves thoroughly understanding and critically evaluating content.

Syntopical or Comparative Reading: achieved by relating multiple texts on the same topic to build broader understanding.

Adler wasn’t suggesting that every reading requires achieving the deepest level. For example, a novel can be enjoyed perfectly well with basic reading, but a scientific article demands analytical reading to delve deeply into the topics at hand.

More than eighty years later, these reading levels remain essential, yet they now face a new challenge — and an opportunity: artificial intelligence.

Far from replacing readers, AI can become a strategic ally enriching the reading experience. From quick summaries to profound analyses, language models like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini offer tools enabling us to navigate Adler’s reading levels with greater efficiency and depth. AI can help you quickly identify main ideas (inspectional reading) or establish deep connections among different texts (syntopical reading).

But, as always, balance is crucial: leveraging technology without sacrificing human reflection.

In this series of articles, I want to explore with you how AI can enhance each of Adler’s reading levels, providing practical examples and helpful tools for those seeking to read more and better. The goal isn’t to replace the reading experience but to expand it.

Because ultimately, reading is not just about accumulating information; it’s about synchronizing knowledge to better understand the world.

In my next article, I’ll share how and when I use AI for Elementary Reading.

If you’d like to discover how AI can enhance your reading, don’t forget to subscribe to my Newsletter. See you in the next article!