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This past summer, I found myself navigating in congested traffic on the scorching streets of a southern French city. At a crossing, my friend in the passenger seat suggested a right turn toward a renowned spot for fish soup. However, the navigation app on my phone commanded us to continue straight. Fatigued and in a stifling car, I heeded the algorithm's directive. Minutes later, we were stranded at a roadwork site.

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

A Call for Intellectual Maturity and Our Modern Relapse

The influential German philosopher Immanuel Kant once defined the Enlightenment as "humanity's emergence from its self-inflicted immaturity." This state, he argued, "is the incapacity to use one's own understanding without direction from another." For ages, that guiding "other" for society was often the priest, the king, or the feudal lord – entities purporting to channel divine will. To explain phenomena like volcanic eruptions, people sought answers in religion. In organizing the fabric of society, from economics to love, faith acted as the primary guide.

“Sapere aude!” or “Dare to use your reason!”

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 fresh era arrived: reason would replace blind faith, and the intellect, freed from dogma, would become the engine of advancement and a more ethical world.

Now, 250 years later, one might question if we are quietly regressing into a form of intellectual immaturity. An app dictating a driving route is merely the start. Artificial intelligence threatens to become our contemporary authority – a silent overseer that influences our choices and actions. We are in danger of relinquishing the historically earned autonomy to reason for ourselves – and now, not to deities or rulers, but to computer programs.

The Rapid Rise and Hidden Risks of AI Dependence

ChatGPT debuted a mere three years ago, and yet a recent study found that an vast number of respondents had used AI in the preceding half-year. Whether contemplating a breakup or choosing a candidate, individuals are increasingly turning to machines for guidance. Data suggests a large majority of user queries concern personal life matters. Even more striking than our reliance on AI for advice is what happens when we let it speak for us. Writing is now among the top uses for tools like ChatGPT, just behind everyday tasks. 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?

Alarmingly, some evidence hints the answer may be affirmative. A study conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used electroencephalography to track the mental engagement of participants who had could use AI, traditional search engines, or no aids. Those who could use AI showed the least brain activity and had difficulty accurately recalling their own work. Maybe most concerning was that over time, individuals in the AI group grew increasingly reliant, copying large sections of text.

“Inertia and fear,” Kant wrote, “are the reasons why so many of men … remain in perpetual nonage.”

Of course, AI's attraction lies in its convenience. It saves time, minimizes work and – importantly – offers a novel way to offload responsibility. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm argued that the rise of fascism could be understood by a human tendency to surrender personal freedom in for the sake of the comforting security of subordination. AI offers a modern method of relinquishing the weight of having to think and choose.

The Opacity Dilemma: Faith Over Reason

AI's primary draw is its capacity to accomplish things outside human capability – sifting through oceans of data at lightning pace. Sitting in the car in Marseille, this was, ultimately, why I opted to believe the machine over my companion (a choice she interpreted as an insult). With knowledge of real-time information, certainly the app had superior insight – or so I believed.

The fundamental problem is that AI operates as a black box. It generates knowledge, but not always deepening human understanding. We cannot fully grasp how AI reaches its decisions – even its creators admit this. Nor can we check its reasoning against transparent standards. So when we heed AI's recommendation, we are not being led by logic. We are back in the domain of belief. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, trust the machine – that may become our future guiding principle.

Using Without Losing: The Essential Challenge

AI can be a powerful tool for mankind in rational inquiry. It can aid in inventing drugs, liberate us from tedious tasks, or handle administrative chores – work that are repetitive and are unfulfilling. All to the good. But Kant and his contemporaries did not champion enlightenment just so humans could optimize chores or have extra free time. Independent thought was not merely about efficiency – it was a practice of freedom and human self-determination.

Human thought is inherently messy and error-prone, but it compels us to argue, to doubt, to challenge concepts – and to acknowledge the limits of our own understanding. It fosters self-reliance, both personally and collectively. For Kant, the use of reason was never only about acquiring knowledge; 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 rational discourse, rather than unquestioning acceptance.

With all the undeniable benefits AI brings, the paramount challenge remains: how can we leverage its potential of superhuman intelligence without undermining human reasoning, the bedrock of the Enlightenment and of free societies itself? That may be one of the central dilemmas of our century. It is a question we would do well not to outsource to the machine.