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This recent season, I found myself navigating in gridlocked traffic on the scorching streets of a southern French city. At an intersection, my friend in the passenger seat suggested a right turn toward a famous spot for bouillabaisse. Yet, the navigation app on my phone commanded us to go forward. Weary and in a stifling car, I followed the algorithm's advice. Minutes later, we were stuck at a roadwork site.

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

A Call for Intellectual Maturity and A Contemporary Backslide

The influential German philosopher Immanuel Kant once defined the Enlightenment as "man's release from its self-imposed immaturity." This immaturity, he wrote, "represents the incapacity to use one's own understanding without guidance from another." For centuries, that directing force for society was frequently the clergyman, the monarch, or the feudal lord – entities purporting to channel God's voice. To comprehend phenomena like volcanic eruptions, people sought answers in theology. In organizing the fabric of society, from economics to love, faith acted as the main compass.

“Sapere aude!” or “Have courage to use your reason!”

Kant argued that humans had the capacity for reason. They simply lacked the confidence to employ it. With upheavals in the 18th century, a new dawn emerged: logic would replace superstition, and the intellect, freed from dogma, would become the engine of advancement and a more ethical world.

Now, 250 years later, one might wonder if we are slipping back into a form of dependency. An app dictating a driving route is just one example. AI threatens to become our contemporary authority – a unseen overseer that steers our choices 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 computer programs.

The Swift Adoption and Subtle Dangers of Algorithmic Reliance

ChatGPT was launched a mere three years ago, and yet a recent study indicated that an overwhelming majority of people had used AI in the preceding half-year. Whether contemplating a breakup or selecting a vote, individuals are increasingly turning to algorithms for guidance. Research suggests a significant portion of user prompts concern non-work topics. Even more intriguing than our use of AI for advice is what occurs when we let it express for us. Composition is now among the top uses for generative AI, second only to everyday tasks. The late American author Joan Didion famously said, “I write entirely to find out what I am thinking.” What transpires when we cease writing? Do we lose that path?

Alarmingly, some evidence hints the outcome may be yes. A study conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used electroencephalography to track the cognitive activity of participants who had could use AI, Google, or nothing. Those who could rely on AI showed the lowest brain activity and had trouble accurately recalling their own work. Perhaps most concerning was that over time, participants in the AI group became increasingly reliant, copying entire blocks of text.

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

Of course, AI's attraction lies in its convenience. It is fast, minimizes work and – importantly – offers a new method to abdicate responsibility. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm argued that the rise of fascism could be understood by a preference to give up personal freedom in exchange for the comforting security of obedience. AI presents a modern method of relinquishing 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 outside our minds – analyzing oceans of data at lightning pace. Stuck in the car in Marseille, this was, after all, why I chose to believe the app over my companion (a decision she interpreted as an insult). With knowledge of all the data, surely the app had superior insight – or so I thought.

The core issue is that AI operates as a opaque system. It generates knowledge, but without necessarily deepening human comprehension. We cannot fully grasp how AI reaches its decisions – even its programmers admit this. Nor can we check its logic against transparent standards. So when we follow 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, side with the machine – that may become our future credo.

Using Without Losing: The Critical Balance

AI can be a powerful tool for humanity in rational inquiry. It can aid in inventing drugs, free us from "bullshit jobs", or manage taxes – duties that demand little thought and offer little satisfaction. This is beneficial. But Kant and his peers did not champion enlightenment just so humans could assemble better furniture 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 doubt, to test ideas – and to acknowledge the boundaries of our own understanding. It builds confidence, both personally and collectively. For Kant, the use of reason was never solely about information; it was about empowering people to become authors of their own lives, and to resist control. It was about creating a moral community grounded in the common foundation of reason and debate, rather than unquestioning acceptance.

With all the undeniable benefits AI brings, the key question is this: how can we leverage its potential of superhuman intelligence without undermining human rationality, the cornerstone of the Enlightenment and of free societies themselves? That is likely one of the defining questions of our time. It is a question we would do well not to delegate to the machine.