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This past summer, I was caught in congested traffic on the scorching streets of Marseille. At an intersection, my friend in the passenger seat suggested a right turn toward a renowned spot for bouillabaisse. However, the digital guide on my phone instructed us to continue straight. Weary and overheated, I followed the app's advice. Moments later, we were stranded at a construction site.

A minor event, maybe. But one that captures a defining dilemma of our era, where digital tools touches almost every aspect of our lives: whom do we trust to a greater degree – fellow humans 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, "represents the inability to use one's own understanding without guidance from an external source." For centuries, that directing force for society was frequently the clergyman, the king, or the feudal lord – figures purporting to channel God's voice. To explain phenomena like changing seasons, people sought answers in theology. In organizing the social world, from commerce to matters of the heart, religious doctrine acted as the primary guide.

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

Kant argued that humans always possessed the capacity for reason. They just didn't have the confidence to use it. With upheavals in America and France, a new dawn arrived: logic would replace superstition, and the intellect, freed from dogma, would become the engine of advancement and a better world.

Now, two and a half centuries later, one might wonder if we are quietly regressing into a state of intellectual immaturity. An app suggesting a driving route is just one example. AI risks becoming our new "other" – a unseen guide that steers our choices and behaviors. We are in danger of ceding the historically earned autonomy to think independently – and now, not to gods or kings, but to lines of code.

The Swift Adoption and Hidden Risks of AI Dependence

ChatGPT debuted a mere three years ago, and yet a recent study indicated that an vast number of people had engaged with artificial intelligence in the preceding half-year. Whether contemplating ending a relationship or selecting a vote, individuals are looking to machines for guidance. Data suggests a significant portion of user prompts relate to personal life matters. Even more intriguing than our reliance on AI for judgment is what happens when we let it express for us. Composition is now among the most common uses for tools like ChatGPT, second only to practical requests. The late American author Joan Didion famously said, “I write entirely to discover what I am thinking.” What occurs when we stop composing? Do we cease discovering?

Alarmingly, some evidence suggests the outcome may be affirmative. A study conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used brain monitoring to track the mental engagement of participants who had could use AI, traditional search engines, or nothing. Those who could rely on AI displayed the least cognitive engagement and had difficulty accurately recalling their own work. Perhaps most troubling was that over time, participants in the AI group grew increasingly reliant, pasting entire blocks of text.

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

Certainly, AI's attraction lies in its efficiency. It saves time, 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 rise of fascism could be understood by a preference to give up personal freedom in for the sake of the comforting security of subordination. AI presents a digital avenue for relinquishing the burden of having to think and choose.

The Black Box Problem: Faith Over Reason

AI's primary draw is its ability to perform tasks outside human capability – analyzing vast datasets at unprecedented speed. Stuck in the car in Marseille, this was, ultimately, why I opted to trust the machine over my companion (a choice she interpreted as an affront). With access to all the data, certainly the algorithm had superior insight – or so I believed.

The core issue is that AI operates as a opaque system. It generates answers, but without necessarily fostering human comprehension. We cannot fully grasp how AI reaches its decisions – even its programmers acknowledge the opacity. Nor can we verify its reasoning against transparent standards. So when we heed AI's recommendation, we are not being guided by reason. We are back in the realm of faith. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, trust the machine – that could be our future credo.

Using Without Losing: The Critical Balance

AI can be a powerful tool for humanity in scientific pursuit. It can help medical research, free us from tedious tasks, or manage administrative chores – duties that demand little thought 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. 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 argue, to doubt, to test ideas – and to recognize the limits of our own understanding. It builds confidence, both personally and as a society. For Kant, the exercise of reason was never only about acquiring knowledge; it was about empowering people to become authors of their own lives, and to resist control. It was about building a moral community based on the common foundation of rational discourse, rather than blind belief.

With all the advantages AI offers, the paramount challenge is this: how can we harness its promise of superhuman intelligence without eroding human rationality, the cornerstone of the Enlightenment and of free societies itself? That is likely one of the defining questions of our century. It is a question we must strive not to delegate to the machine.