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This recent season, I found myself navigating in congested traffic on the sweltering streets of a southern French city. At an intersection, my friend in the front seat advised a right turn toward a renowned spot for bouillabaisse. Yet, the navigation app on my phone commanded us to continue straight. Fatigued and overheated, I followed the app's advice. Moments later, we were stranded at a roadwork site.

A minor event, maybe. But one that encapsulates a defining question of our era, where technology permeates nearly every facet of our lives: who gets our trust to a greater degree – fellow humans and our personal instincts, or the algorithm?

The Enlightenment's Promise and A Contemporary Backslide

The influential German philosopher Immanuel Kant famously described the Enlightenment as "humanity's emergence from its self-inflicted immaturity." This state, he argued, "represents the inability to use one's personal reason without direction from an external source." For centuries, that guiding "other" for society was often the priest, the monarch, or the landowner – figures claiming to channel divine will. To explain natural events like changing seasons, people sought answers in religion. In organizing the fabric of society, from commerce to love, faith acted as the primary guide.

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

Kant maintained that humans always possessed the capacity for reason. They simply lacked the boldness to employ it. With revolutions in the 18th century, a new dawn emerged: logic would replace superstition, and the intellect, liberated from authority, would become the engine of progress and a more ethical world.

Now, 250 years later, one might wonder if we are slipping back into a form of intellectual immaturity. An app suggesting a direction is merely the start. Artificial intelligence risks becoming our new "other" – a silent guide that steers our choices and behaviors. We risk relinquishing the historically earned courage to reason for ourselves – and now, not to deities or rulers, but to computer programs.

The Swift Adoption and Subtle Dangers of AI Dependence

ChatGPT was launched only in 2022, and yet a global survey indicated that an vast number of people had engaged with artificial intelligence in the preceding half-year. Whether deciding on ending a relationship or choosing a candidate, individuals are increasingly turning to algorithms for counsel. Research suggests a large majority of user prompts concern non-work topics. Even more intriguing than our reliance on AI for advice is what happens when we allow it express for us. Writing is now among the top uses for tools like ChatGPT, just behind everyday tasks. The late American author Joan Didion once remarked, “I write entirely to discover what I am thinking.” What occurs when we stop composing? Do we lose that path?

Alarmingly, some evidence hints the answer may be affirmative. A study conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used electroencephalography to observe the mental engagement of essay writers who had could use AI, Google, or no aids. Those who could use AI showed the least cognitive engagement and had trouble accurately recalling their own work. Perhaps most troubling was that over time, participants in the AI group became progressively lazier, pasting large sections of text.

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

Certainly, AI's appeal stems from its efficiency. It is fast, reduces effort and – importantly – offers a new method to offload responsibility. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm proposed that the rise of fascism could be partly explained by a preference to surrender autonomy in for the sake of the comforting security of subordination. AI presents a digital method of surrendering the burden of having to think and choose.

The Opacity Dilemma: Trust Without Understanding

AI's greatest allure is its capacity to perform tasks outside our minds – sifting through oceans of data at lightning pace. Sitting in the car in Marseille, this was, ultimately, why I opted to trust the app over my companion (a decision she took as an insult). With access to all the data, certainly the algorithm had superior insight – or so I thought.

The core issue is that AI is a black box. It generates knowledge, but without necessarily fostering human understanding. We do not truly know the process behind its decisions – including its programmers admit this. Nor can we check its reasoning against transparent standards. So when we heed AI's advice, we are not being led by logic. We are returning to the realm of faith. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, side with the machine – that could be our future credo.

Using Without Losing: The Essential Challenge

AI can be a powerful tool for humanity in scientific pursuit. It can help medical research, free us from tedious tasks, or handle administrative chores – 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. Independent thought was not merely about efficiency – it was a discipline of freedom and human emancipation.

Human thought is inherently messy and error-prone, but it compels us to argue, to question, to challenge concepts – and to acknowledge the boundaries of our own understanding. It builds confidence, both personally and as a society. For Kant, the exercise of reason was never only about acquiring knowledge; it was about empowering people to become authors of their own destinies, and to resist control. It was about building a moral community based on the shared principle of rational discourse, rather than blind belief.

With all the advantages AI brings, the key question remains: how can we leverage its potential of advanced capability without undermining human rationality, the cornerstone of the Enlightenment and of liberal democracy themselves? That is likely one of the defining questions of our century. It is a question we would do well not to outsource to the algorithm.