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This recent season, I found myself navigating in congested traffic on the sweltering streets of Marseille. At an intersection, my friend in the passenger seat suggested a right turn toward a renowned spot for bouillabaisse. However, the navigation app on my phone instructed us to go forward. Weary and overheated, I heeded the algorithm's advice. Moments later, we were stuck at a roadwork site.

A seemingly trivial incident, maybe. But one that encapsulates a central dilemma of our time, where technology permeates nearly every facet of existence: whom do we trust to a greater degree – other people and our own intuition, or the algorithm?

The Enlightenment's Promise and Our Modern Relapse

The renowned German philosopher Immanuel Kant famously described the Enlightenment as "humanity's emergence from its self-inflicted immaturity." This state, he argued, "is the inability to use one's personal reason without guidance from an external source." For ages, that directing force for society was often the clergyman, the king, or the feudal lord – entities claiming to speak for God's voice. To explain natural events like changing seasons, people looked for explanations in religion. In shaping the social world, from commerce to love, religious doctrine served as the primary guide.

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

Kant argued that humans always possessed the capacity for reason. They simply lacked the boldness to use it. With upheavals in the 18th century, a new dawn emerged: logic would supplant blind faith, and the human mind, liberated from authority, would become the engine of advancement and a better world.

Now, 250 years later, one might wonder if we are slipping back into a state of dependency. An app dictating a driving route is merely the start. Artificial intelligence risks becoming our contemporary authority – a unseen guide that influences our decisions and behaviors. We risk relinquishing the historically earned courage to reason for ourselves – and now, not to gods or kings, but to computer programs.

The Swift Adoption and Hidden Risks of AI Dependence

ChatGPT debuted a mere three years ago, and already a global survey found that an vast number of respondents had engaged with artificial intelligence in the preceding half-year. Whether deciding on ending a relationship or selecting a vote, individuals are increasingly turning to machines for counsel. Data suggests a significant portion of user queries concern non-work topics. Even more striking than our reliance on AI for advice is what occurs when we let it speak for us. Writing is now one of the most common uses for tools like ChatGPT, just behind practical requests. The celebrated American author Joan Didion once remarked, “I write purely to find out what I am thinking.” What transpires when we cease writing? Do we cease discovering?

Worryingly, emerging research hints the outcome may be affirmative. A study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used brain monitoring to track the cognitive activity of participants who had could use AI, Google, or no aids. Those who could use AI showed the least cognitive engagement and had difficulty quoting their own work. Perhaps most troubling was that after a few months, individuals in the AI group grew progressively lazier, copying entire blocks of text.

“Inertia and fear,” Kant wrote, “are the reasons why so many of men … stay in lifelong immaturity.”

Of course, AI's attraction lies in its convenience. It is fast, minimizes work and – critically – offers a new method to abdicate accountability. 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 surrender autonomy in for the sake of the comforting security of obedience. AI presents a digital method of surrendering the weight of having to decide for oneself.

The Black Box Problem: Faith Over Reason

AI's greatest allure is its ability to accomplish things beyond our minds – analyzing oceans of data at lightning pace. Sitting in the car in Marseille, this was, ultimately, why I opted to trust the machine over my friend (a choice she took as an insult). With access to all the data, surely the algorithm had superior insight – or so I thought.

The core issue is that AI is a black box. It produces knowledge, but without necessarily fostering human comprehension. We do not truly know how AI reaches its conclusions – even its creators admit this. Nor can we verify its reasoning against transparent standards. So when we follow AI's recommendation, we are not being guided by reason. We are back in the domain of faith. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, side with the machine – that could be our future guiding principle.

Harnessing Without Eroding: The Critical Balance

AI can be a formidable ally for mankind in rational inquiry. It can aid in medical research, free us from "bullshit jobs", or handle administrative chores – duties that are repetitive and are unfulfilling. All to the good. 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 efficiency – it was a practice of freedom and human self-determination.

Human thought is often chaotic and fallible, but it forces us to debate, to doubt, to test ideas – and to acknowledge the limits of our own understanding. It builds self-reliance, both individually and collectively. For Kant, the exercise of reason was never solely about information; it was about enabling people to become agents of their own lives, and to oppose domination. It was about building a ethical society grounded in the common foundation of rational discourse, rather than unquestioning acceptance.

With all the undeniable benefits AI offers, the paramount challenge remains: how can we leverage its potential of advanced capability without eroding human rationality, the bedrock of the Enlightenment and of liberal democracy itself? That is likely one of the defining questions of our century. It is a question we would do well not to delegate to the machine.