I don't want you to summarise the page
Kevin Quirk criticizes the growing trend of AI-powered browser extensions and tools that automatically summarize web pages without the user's consent. He argues that these summaries strip context, nuance, and the author's voice, reducing thoughtful writing to bullet points and undermining the value of actually reading content in full.
Background
- Kevin Quirk is a blogger and privacy advocate who runs a simple, text-first personal site. This post pushes back on a recent trend: AI tools baked into browsers (e.g. Microsoft Copilot, Google's "Help me read") that auto-summarise any page you visit.
- His core point: summarising disrespects the craft of writing. Pacing, word choice, emphasis, and structure are all intentional — a bullet list of key points strips away the very reason an author wrote the piece. It's useful for meeting transcripts or dense PDFs, but rude for deliberately crafted prose.
- This sits within a wider tension: big tech companies are racing to inject generative AI into every surface (search, email, reading), but many users find it intrusive, inaccurate, or philosophically wrongheaded. Similar backlash hit Google's AI Overviews in search results.