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This recent season, I found myself navigating in gridlocked traffic on the sweltering streets of Marseille. At a crossing, my companion in the front 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 in a stifling car, I followed the algorithm's directive. Moments later, we were stuck at a roadwork site.

A seemingly trivial event, maybe. But one that captures a central question of our era, where digital tools permeates almost every aspect of existence: whom do we trust more – fellow humans and our own intuition, or the algorithm?

The Enlightenment's Promise and Our Modern Relapse

The renowned German philosopher Immanuel Kant once defined the Enlightenment as "humanity's emergence from its self-inflicted nonage." This immaturity, he argued, "represents the inability to use one's own understanding without direction from another." For centuries, that guiding "other" for society was frequently the priest, the king, or the feudal lord – figures purporting to channel God's voice. To explain natural events like volcanic eruptions, people looked for explanations in religion. In shaping the fabric of society, from economics to love, faith acted as the primary guide.

“Sapere aude!” or “Dare to use your own understanding!”

Kant argued that humans had the ability to think rationally. They just didn't have the boldness to use it. With revolutions in America and France, a fresh era emerged: reason would supplant blind faith, and the intellect, freed from dogma, would become the driver of progress and a better world.

Today, 250 years later, one might question if we are quietly regressing into a state of intellectual immaturity. An app dictating a driving route is just one example. AI threatens to become our contemporary authority – a silent guide that steers our decisions and behaviors. We are in danger of ceding the hard-won autonomy to reason for ourselves – and this time, not to deities or rulers, but to lines of code.

The Swift Adoption and Subtle Dangers of AI Dependence

ChatGPT debuted a mere three years ago, and already a global survey found that an vast number of respondents had used AI in the preceding half-year. Whether deciding on a breakup or choosing a candidate, individuals are increasingly turning to machines for guidance. Research suggests a large majority of user prompts relate to non-work topics. Even more intriguing than our use of AI for advice is what occurs when we let it express for us. Writing is now among the most common uses for generative AI, just behind practical requests. The celebrated American author Joan Didion famously said, “I write entirely to find out what I am thinking.” What occurs when we cease writing? Do we lose that path?

Worryingly, some evidence hints the outcome may be affirmative. A study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used brain monitoring to observe the mental engagement of essay writers who had could use AI, Google, or nothing. Those who could rely on AI displayed the lowest brain activity and had difficulty quoting their own work. Maybe most concerning was that after a few months, individuals in the AI group grew progressively lazier, pasting large sections of text.

“Inertia and fear,” Kant wrote, “are the reasons why so great a proportion of men … remain in lifelong immaturity.”

Certainly, AI's appeal stems from its convenience. It saves time, minimizes work and – importantly – offers a novel way to abdicate accountability. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm proposed that the rise of fascism could be partly explained by a human tendency to give up personal freedom in exchange for the reassuring certainty of obedience. AI presents a modern method of surrendering the weight of having to think and choose.

The Opacity Dilemma: Faith Over Reason

AI's primary draw is its capacity to accomplish things beyond our minds – analyzing vast datasets at unprecedented speed. Sitting in the car in Marseille, this was, ultimately, why I chose to believe the app over my companion (a choice she took as an insult). With knowledge of real-time information, certainly the algorithm must know best – or so I believed.

The core issue is that AI is a opaque system. It generates knowledge, but without necessarily deepening human comprehension. We cannot fully grasp how AI reaches its conclusions – including its programmers acknowledge the opacity. Nor can we verify its reasoning against clear, objective criteria. So when we follow AI's recommendation, we are not being guided by reason. We are back in the realm of belief. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, trust the machine – that could be our 21st-century guiding principle.

Using Without Losing: The Critical Balance

AI can be a formidable ally for humanity in rational inquiry. It can aid in inventing drugs, free us from tedious tasks, or handle administrative chores – work that demand little thought and are unfulfilling. All to the good. But Kant and his peers did not advocate for enlightenment just so humans could optimize chores or have extra free time. Independent thought was not merely about efficiency – it was a practice of liberty and human emancipation.

Human thought is inherently messy and fallible, but it compels us to debate, to question, to challenge concepts – and to acknowledge the limits of our own understanding. It builds self-reliance, both individually and as a society. For Kant, the use of reason was never only about information; it was about enabling people to become authors of their own lives, and to oppose control. It was about building a moral community based on the common foundation of reason and debate, rather than blind belief.

With all the advantages AI brings, the paramount challenge is this: how can we leverage its promise of superhuman intelligence without undermining human rationality, the cornerstone of the Enlightenment and of liberal democracy 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 algorithm.