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This recent season, I found myself navigating in congested traffic on the sweltering streets of Marseille. At a crossing, my friend in the front seat suggested a right turn toward a renowned spot for fish soup. However, the navigation app on my phone commanded us to go forward. Fatigued and overheated, 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 defining dilemma of our era, where technology touches almost every aspect of existence: whom do we trust more – other people and our personal instincts, or the algorithm?

A Call for Intellectual Maturity and Our Modern Relapse

The influential German philosopher Immanuel Kant once defined the Enlightenment as "man's release from its self-imposed immaturity." This state, he wrote, "is the incapacity to use one's own understanding without guidance from an external source." For ages, that directing force for society was frequently the clergyman, the king, or the landowner – figures claiming to channel divine will. To comprehend natural events like volcanic eruptions, people sought answers in theology. In shaping the fabric of society, from commerce to love, religious doctrine served as the primary guide.

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

Kant maintained that humans had the capacity for reason. They simply lacked the confidence to employ it. With revolutions in the 18th century, a fresh era arrived: logic would replace superstition, and the intellect, liberated from authority, would become the driver of progress and a better world.

Today, 250 years later, one might wonder if we are quietly regressing into a form of dependency. An app suggesting a driving route is merely the start. AI threatens to become our new "other" – a silent guide that influences our decisions and actions. We risk relinquishing the hard-won autonomy to think independently – and this time, not to deities or rulers, but to lines of code.

The Rapid Rise and Subtle Dangers of Algorithmic Reliance

ChatGPT debuted a mere three years ago, and already a global survey indicated that an vast number of respondents had used AI in the previous six months. Whether contemplating ending a relationship or selecting a vote, individuals are looking to machines for guidance. Data suggests a large majority of user prompts concern personal life matters. Even more striking than our reliance on AI for judgment is what happens when we allow it speak for us. Composition is now one of the most common uses for generative AI, second only to practical requests. The celebrated American author Joan Didion once remarked, “I write entirely to discover what I am thinking.” What transpires when we stop composing? Do we cease discovering?

Worryingly, some evidence suggests the outcome may be yes. A study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used brain monitoring to track the cognitive activity of essay writers who had could use AI, Google, or no aids. Those who could use AI displayed the lowest brain activity and had difficulty quoting their own work. Perhaps most troubling was that after a few months, individuals in the AI group became increasingly reliant, copying large sections of text.

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

Certainly, AI's appeal stems from its convenience. It saves time, reduces effort and – critically – offers a new method to abdicate responsibility. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm proposed that the rise of fascism could be understood by a human tendency to give up personal freedom in for the sake of the comforting security of subordination. AI presents a modern avenue for surrendering the burden of having to think and choose.

The Black Box Problem: Trust Without Understanding

AI's greatest allure is its ability to perform tasks beyond our minds – analyzing oceans of data at unprecedented speed. Stuck in the car in Marseille, this was, ultimately, why I opted to believe the machine over my companion (a choice she took as an insult). With access to all the data, certainly the algorithm had superior insight – or so I believed.

The core issue is that AI is a opaque system. It produces answers, but without necessarily fostering human comprehension. We do not truly know the process behind its conclusions – including its creators acknowledge the opacity. Nor can we verify its logic against transparent standards. So when we heed AI's advice, 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 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 medical research, liberate us from "bullshit jobs", or handle administrative chores – duties that demand little thought and offer little satisfaction. This is beneficial. But Kant and his contemporaries did not advocate for reason over faith just so humans could assemble better furniture or have more leisure. Critical thinking was not merely about efficiency – it was a practice of freedom and human self-determination.

Human thought is inherently messy and fallible, but it forces us to debate, to doubt, to test ideas – and to recognize the limits of our own understanding. It builds confidence, both individually and collectively. For Kant, the exercise of reason was never only about acquiring knowledge; it was about empowering people to become agents of their own destinies, and to oppose domination. It was about building a moral community grounded in the shared principle of reason and debate, rather than unquestioning acceptance.

With all the advantages AI brings, the key question remains: how can we leverage its promise of advanced capability without eroding human rationality, the cornerstone of the Enlightenment and of liberal democracy itself? That may be one of the defining questions of our time. It is a question we must strive not to outsource to the machine.