However, I also want to flag that the cool part about the agent loop is that it feels less like skimming since you can watch the LLM search, evaluate results, search again, evaluate results, and repeat until it's happy that it has enough information to actually answer.
Understanding a concept means you are able to use it in higher order reasoning. Think about the rote practice necessary to build intuition in mathematics until you're able to use the concept being learned for the next concept which in turn relies on it.
Once that intuition is built, that's understanding.
Actually, I think we have it all backwards. We're taught to skim because such tools didn't exist. Once (if!) they are reliable enough, skimming should become a dead art, like shorthand is.
One should know how to read well (in detail), when one needs to. Everything else can be delegated. Indeed, this is why people in high positions don't skim - they can afford secretaries and underlings to do the skimming for them.
I have the same critique for a lot of AI tools. We're replacing the meaningful parts of content creation and consumption with a computer so we can pass it off as having created or understood it ourselves. It just seems pointless.