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This past summer, I was caught in gridlocked traffic on the scorching streets of Marseille. At an intersection, my companion in the passenger seat advised a right turn toward a renowned spot for bouillabaisse. Yet, the digital guide on my phone commanded us to go forward. Fatigued and overheated, I heeded the algorithm's advice. Moments later, we were stranded at a roadwork site.

A minor incident, maybe. But one that captures a defining dilemma of our time, where technology touches almost every aspect of existence: who gets our trust to a greater degree – fellow humans and our personal instincts, or the machine?

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 wrote, "is the incapacity to use one's personal reason without direction from an external source." For ages, that guiding "other" for human thought was often the clergyman, the monarch, or the feudal lord – entities purporting to channel God's voice. To explain phenomena like volcanic eruptions, people looked for explanations in religion. In shaping the social world, from economics to matters of the heart, faith acted as the main compass.

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

Kant argued that humans always possessed the ability to think rationally. They just didn't have the boldness to use it. With revolutions in the 18th century, a fresh era arrived: logic would replace superstition, and the human mind, liberated from dogma, would become the engine of progress and a more ethical world.

Today, two and a half centuries later, one might wonder if we are quietly regressing into a form of intellectual immaturity. An app dictating a direction is merely the start. Artificial intelligence threatens to become our contemporary authority – a silent overseer that steers our choices and actions. We risk relinquishing the hard-won autonomy to reason for ourselves – and now, not to gods or kings, but to lines of code.

The Rapid Rise and Hidden Risks of AI Dependence

ChatGPT debuted a mere three years ago, and yet a recent study found that an overwhelming majority of people had engaged with artificial intelligence in the previous six months. Whether contemplating a breakup or choosing a candidate, individuals are looking to algorithms for guidance. Research suggests a significant portion of user queries concern personal life matters. Even more intriguing than our use of AI for advice is what occurs when we let it express for us. Composition is now one of the most common uses for generative AI, just behind everyday tasks. The celebrated American author Joan Didion once remarked, “I write purely to discover what I am thinking.” What occurs when we cease writing? Do we lose that path?

Alarmingly, emerging research suggests the outcome may be yes. A study conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used electroencephalography to observe the cognitive activity of participants who had access to AI, Google, or nothing. Those who could rely on AI displayed the least brain activity and had trouble quoting their own work. Maybe most concerning was that after a few months, individuals in the AI group became progressively lazier, copying entire blocks of text.

“Laziness and cowardice,” 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 is fast, minimizes work and – critically – offers a novel way to offload accountability. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm argued that the appeal of authoritarianism could be partly explained by a human tendency to give up autonomy in exchange for the comforting security of obedience. AI offers a modern avenue for surrendering the burden of having to think and choose.

The Opacity Dilemma: Faith Over Reason

AI's greatest allure is its ability to perform tasks beyond our minds – analyzing oceans of data at unprecedented speed. Sitting in the car in Marseille, this was, ultimately, why I chose to believe the app over my companion (a decision she interpreted as an affront). With knowledge of real-time information, surely the app must know best – or so I thought.

The core issue is that AI is a black box. It generates knowledge, but without necessarily fostering human understanding. We cannot fully grasp how AI reaches its decisions – including its creators acknowledge the opacity. Nor can we check its logic against clear, objective criteria. So when we heed AI's recommendation, we are not being led by logic. We are back in the realm of faith. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, trust the machine – that could be our 21st-century guiding principle.

Using Without Losing: The Essential Challenge

AI can be a formidable ally for mankind in rational inquiry. It can help medical research, free us from "bullshit jobs", or manage administrative chores – work that are repetitive and are unfulfilling. This is beneficial. But Kant and his contemporaries did not champion enlightenment just so humans could assemble better furniture or have more leisure. Critical thinking was not merely about productivity – it was a practice of liberty and human self-determination.

Human thought is often chaotic and error-prone, but it compels us to debate, to doubt, to test ideas – and to acknowledge the limits of our own knowledge. It builds self-reliance, both individually 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 domination. It was about building a moral community grounded in the common foundation of rational discourse, rather than unquestioning acceptance.

With all the advantages AI brings, the paramount challenge is this: how can we harness its promise of superhuman intelligence without undermining human rationality, the cornerstone of the Enlightenment and of free societies itself? That may be one of the defining questions of our century. It is a question we would do well not to delegate to the algorithm.