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This recent season, I found myself navigating in congested traffic on the sweltering streets of Marseille. At a crossing, my companion in the passenger seat suggested a right turn toward a famous spot for fish soup. However, the navigation app on my phone instructed us to continue straight. Fatigued and overheated, I followed the app's directive. Moments later, we were stranded at a roadwork site.

A minor incident, maybe. But one that encapsulates a central question of our time, where digital tools touches almost every aspect of existence: whom do we trust more – fellow humans and our own intuition, or the algorithm?

The Enlightenment's Promise and A Contemporary Backslide

The influential German philosopher Immanuel Kant once defined the Enlightenment as "humanity's emergence from its self-imposed immaturity." This immaturity, he argued, "is the inability to use one's own understanding without guidance from another." For centuries, that guiding "other" for human thought was often the priest, the monarch, or the landowner – figures claiming to speak for divine will. To comprehend phenomena like volcanic eruptions, people looked for explanations in theology. In shaping the fabric of society, from economics to matters of the heart, faith served as the primary guide.

“Sapere aude!” or “Have courage to use your own understanding!”

Kant argued that humans always possessed the capacity for reason. They just didn't have the boldness to employ it. With upheavals in the 18th century, a new dawn emerged: reason would supplant superstition, and the intellect, liberated from authority, would become the engine of progress and a better world.

Now, two and a half centuries later, one might wonder if we are slipping back into a state of intellectual immaturity. An app dictating a driving route is merely the start. Artificial intelligence threatens to become our new "other" – a silent guide that steers our decisions and behaviors. We are in danger of relinquishing the hard-won autonomy to think independently – and now, not to gods or kings, but to computer programs.

The Swift Adoption and Subtle Dangers of AI Dependence

ChatGPT was launched only in 2022, and yet a global survey found that an vast number of people had engaged with artificial intelligence in the previous six months. Whether contemplating a breakup or choosing a candidate, individuals are increasingly turning to algorithms for counsel. Research suggests a significant portion of user queries relate to personal life matters. Even more striking than our use of AI for advice is what happens when we allow it express for us. Composition is now one of the most common uses for tools like ChatGPT, second only to practical requests. The celebrated American author Joan Didion once remarked, “I write purely to discover what I am thinking.” What transpires when we stop composing? Do we lose that path?

Alarmingly, some evidence hints the answer may be affirmative. A study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used electroencephalography to track the cognitive activity of essay writers who had access to AI, Google, or nothing. Those who could use AI displayed the least brain activity and had difficulty accurately recalling their own work. Maybe most troubling was that after a few months, participants in the AI group became increasingly reliant, pasting entire blocks of text.

“Laziness and cowardice,” Kant wrote, “are the reasons why so great a proportion of men … stay in perpetual nonage.”

Of course, AI's appeal lies in its efficiency. It saves time, minimizes work and – critically – offers a new method to abdicate responsibility. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm proposed that the rise of fascism could be understood by a preference to give up autonomy in for the sake of the reassuring certainty of obedience. AI offers a digital avenue for relinquishing the burden of having to decide for oneself.

The Opacity Dilemma: Faith Over Reason

AI's greatest allure is its ability to perform tasks beyond human capability – sifting through oceans of data at lightning pace. Stuck in the car in Marseille, this was, ultimately, why I chose to believe the app over my companion (a choice she took as an affront). With access to all the data, certainly the app must know best – or so I thought.

The fundamental problem is that AI is a black box. It generates answers, but without necessarily fostering human understanding. We do not truly know the process behind its conclusions – including its programmers acknowledge the opacity. Nor can we verify its reasoning against clear, objective criteria. So when we heed AI's advice, we are not being led by logic. We are returning to the domain of faith. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, side with the machine – that may become our 21st-century credo.

Using Without Losing: The Essential Challenge

AI can be a powerful tool for mankind in scientific pursuit. It can help medical research, free us from "bullshit jobs", or handle taxes – duties that are repetitive and are unfulfilling. This is beneficial. But Kant and his peers did not champion reason over faith just so humans could optimize chores or have more leisure. Critical thinking was not just about productivity – it was a discipline of freedom and human emancipation.

Human thought is inherently messy and error-prone, but it compels us to argue, to doubt, to test ideas – and to acknowledge the limits of our own understanding. It builds confidence, both personally and collectively. For Kant, the exercise of reason was never solely about acquiring knowledge; it was about empowering people to become authors of their own lives, and to resist control. It was about building a ethical society based on the shared principle of rational discourse, rather than unquestioning acceptance.

With all the undeniable benefits AI offers, the paramount challenge is this: how can we harness its potential of advanced capability without eroding human rationality, the bedrock of the Enlightenment and of free societies itself? That is likely one of the central dilemmas of our century. It is a question we would do well not to outsource to the machine.