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This past summer, I was caught in congested traffic on the scorching streets of Marseille. At a crossing, my friend in the front seat advised a right turn toward a renowned spot for bouillabaisse. However, the digital guide on my phone instructed us to continue straight. Fatigued and overheated, I followed the app's advice. Minutes later, we were stranded at a roadwork site.

A seemingly trivial incident, perhaps. But one that encapsulates a central question of our time, where technology permeates nearly every facet of existence: who gets our trust to a greater degree – fellow humans and our personal instincts, or the machine?

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 immaturity, he argued, "represents the inability to use one's personal reason without direction from an external source." For ages, that directing force for society was often the priest, the king, or the feudal lord – figures claiming to speak for divine will. To comprehend natural events like changing seasons, people looked for explanations in theology. In shaping the fabric of society, from commerce to love, religious doctrine acted as the primary guide.

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

Kant maintained that humans always possessed the capacity for reason. They simply lacked the boldness to employ it. With revolutions in the 18th century, a fresh era emerged: reason would supplant superstition, and the intellect, freed from authority, would become the driver of progress and a better world.

Now, 250 years later, one might wonder if we are slipping back into a state of dependency. An app dictating a driving route is merely the start. AI risks becoming our new "other" – a silent guide that influences our decisions and actions. We risk ceding the historically earned courage to reason for ourselves – and now, not to deities or rulers, but to computer programs.

The Swift Adoption and Hidden Risks of Algorithmic Reliance

ChatGPT debuted only in 2022, and already a global survey found that an overwhelming majority of people had used AI in the previous six months. Whether deciding on a breakup or selecting a vote, individuals are looking to algorithms for counsel. Data suggests a significant portion of user prompts concern non-work topics. Even more striking than our reliance on AI for advice is what occurs when we allow it speak for us. Composition is now one of the top uses for tools like ChatGPT, second only to practical requests. 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 hints the answer may be yes. A study conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used brain monitoring to track the cognitive activity of participants who had access to AI, Google, or no aids. Those who could rely on AI showed the lowest brain activity and had difficulty accurately recalling their own work. Perhaps most concerning was that after a few months, participants in the AI group became progressively lazier, pasting entire blocks of text.

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

Certainly, AI's attraction lies in its convenience. It saves time, reduces effort and – critically – offers a new method to offload accountability. 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 surrender autonomy in exchange for the reassuring certainty of subordination. AI presents a digital method of surrendering the burden of having to decide for oneself.

The Black Box Problem: Trust Without Understanding

AI's greatest allure is its capacity to accomplish things outside human capability – sifting through oceans of data at unprecedented speed. Stuck in the car in Marseille, this was, after all, why I chose to trust the machine over my friend (a choice she took as an affront). With knowledge of real-time information, certainly the app had superior insight – or so I thought.

The core issue is that AI is a opaque system. It produces answers, but without necessarily deepening human comprehension. We cannot fully grasp how AI reaches its conclusions – including its programmers admit this. Nor can we check its reasoning against transparent standards. So when we follow AI's recommendation, we are not being led by logic. We are back in the realm of belief. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, side with the machine – that could be our future credo.

Using Without Losing: The Essential Challenge

AI can be a powerful tool for mankind in scientific pursuit. It can aid in inventing drugs, liberate us from "bullshit jobs", or manage taxes – duties that demand little thought and are unfulfilling. All to the good. But Kant and his contemporaries did not advocate for enlightenment just so humans could optimize chores or have extra free time. Independent thought was not just about efficiency – it was a discipline of freedom and human emancipation.

Human thought is often chaotic and fallible, but it compels us to argue, to doubt, to challenge concepts – 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 information; it was about enabling people to become agents of their own destinies, and to oppose control. It was about creating a moral community grounded in the shared principle of rational discourse, rather than unquestioning acceptance.

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