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This past summer, I found myself navigating in gridlocked traffic on the sweltering streets of a southern French city. At a crossing, my companion in the passenger seat advised a right turn toward a famous spot for fish soup. However, the navigation app on my phone commanded us to continue straight. Fatigued and overheated, I heeded the algorithm's directive. Moments later, we were stranded at a roadwork site.

A seemingly trivial incident, perhaps. But one that encapsulates a central dilemma of our time, 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 renowned German philosopher Immanuel Kant famously described the Enlightenment as "man's release from its self-imposed immaturity." This immaturity, he wrote, "represents the inability to use one's own understanding without guidance from another." For ages, that directing force for society was often the priest, the monarch, or the landowner – figures claiming to speak for divine will. To comprehend phenomena like changing seasons, people sought answers in theology. In organizing the fabric of society, from economics to matters of the heart, faith served as the primary guide.

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

Kant maintained that humans had the capacity for reason. They just didn't have the boldness to use it. With revolutions in the 18th century, a new dawn arrived: reason would supplant blind faith, and the human mind, liberated from dogma, would become the engine of advancement and a more ethical world.

Today, 250 years later, one might wonder if we are quietly regressing into a state of dependency. An app dictating a direction is just one example. AI risks becoming our contemporary authority – a silent guide that influences our choices and actions. We risk relinquishing the historically earned courage to think independently – and this time, not to gods or kings, but to lines of code.

The Rapid Rise and Subtle Dangers of AI Dependence

ChatGPT was launched a mere three years ago, and yet a global survey found that an overwhelming majority of respondents had engaged with artificial intelligence in the preceding half-year. Whether deciding on a breakup or choosing a candidate, individuals are increasingly turning to algorithms for guidance. Data suggests a significant portion of user prompts concern personal life matters. Even more intriguing than our use of AI for advice is what happens when we allow it speak for us. Composition is now among the most common uses for tools like ChatGPT, just behind everyday tasks. The late American author Joan Didion famously said, “I write purely to find out what I am thinking.” What occurs when we cease writing? Do we cease discovering?

Worryingly, emerging research suggests the outcome may be yes. A study conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used electroencephalography to track the mental engagement of participants who had could use AI, Google, or nothing. Those who could use AI showed the lowest brain activity and had trouble accurately recalling their own work. Perhaps most concerning was that after a few months, participants in the AI group became increasingly reliant, pasting entire blocks of text.

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

Certainly, AI's appeal stems from its convenience. It saves time, minimizes work and – critically – offers a novel way to abdicate responsibility. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm proposed that the appeal of authoritarianism could be partly explained by a preference to give up autonomy in for the sake of the reassuring certainty of subordination. AI presents a digital avenue for surrendering the burden of having to decide for oneself.

The Opacity Dilemma: Faith Over Reason

AI's primary draw is its ability to accomplish things outside human capability – sifting through vast datasets at unprecedented speed. Sitting in the car in Marseille, this was, ultimately, why I opted to believe the app over my companion (a choice she took as an affront). With access to real-time information, surely the app had superior insight – or so I thought.

The core issue is that AI operates as a opaque system. It generates answers, but without necessarily deepening human comprehension. We cannot fully grasp how AI reaches its conclusions – even its programmers admit this. Nor can we check its reasoning against clear, objective criteria. So when we heed AI's recommendation, we are not being guided by reason. We are back in the domain of faith. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, side with the machine – that may become our 21st-century credo.

Harnessing Without Eroding: The Essential Challenge

AI can be a powerful tool for mankind in rational inquiry. It can help inventing drugs, liberate us from "bullshit jobs", or handle taxes – work that are repetitive and offer little satisfaction. This is beneficial. But Kant and his contemporaries did not advocate for reason over faith just so humans could optimize chores or have more leisure. Critical thinking was not merely about efficiency – it was a practice of freedom and human self-determination.

Human thought is often chaotic and fallible, but it compels us to argue, to doubt, to test ideas – and to recognize the limits of our own knowledge. It builds confidence, both personally and as a society. For Kant, the exercise of reason was never solely about acquiring knowledge; it was about empowering people to become authors of their own destinies, and to resist control. It was about creating a ethical society based on the common foundation of reason and debate, rather than unquestioning acceptance.

With all the undeniable benefits AI brings, the paramount challenge is this: how can we leverage its potential of superhuman intelligence without undermining human reasoning, the bedrock of the Enlightenment and of liberal democracy themselves? That is likely one of the central dilemmas of our time. It is a question we must strive not to outsource to the algorithm.