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This recent season, I found myself navigating in congested traffic on the sweltering streets of Marseille. At an intersection, my friend in the front seat suggested a right turn toward a renowned spot for fish soup. However, the digital guide on my phone instructed us to go forward. Fatigued and in a stifling car, I heeded the algorithm's advice. Minutes later, we were stuck at a roadwork site.

A minor incident, maybe. But one that encapsulates a central dilemma of our era, where technology touches nearly every facet of existence: who gets our trust more – fellow humans and our personal instincts, or the machine?

The Enlightenment's Promise and A Contemporary Backslide

The renowned German philosopher Immanuel Kant famously described the Enlightenment as "humanity's emergence from its self-inflicted nonage." This immaturity, he wrote, "is the inability to use one's personal reason without guidance from an external source." For centuries, that guiding "other" for human thought was often the priest, the king, or the landowner – figures purporting to speak for God's voice. To explain natural events like changing seasons, people sought answers in theology. In shaping the fabric of society, from commerce to matters of the heart, faith served as the primary guide.

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

Kant maintained that humans had the capacity for reason. They simply lacked the confidence to use it. With upheavals in America and France, a new dawn emerged: logic would supplant blind faith, and the human mind, freed from authority, would become the engine of advancement and a better world.

Now, 250 years later, one might question if we are slipping back into a state of dependency. An app suggesting a direction is merely the start. AI threatens to become our new "other" – a unseen overseer that steers our decisions and actions. We risk ceding the historically earned autonomy to think independently – and now, not to deities or rulers, but to computer programs.

The Rapid Rise and Subtle Dangers of Algorithmic Reliance

ChatGPT was launched a mere three years ago, and already a recent study found that an vast number of respondents had used AI in the preceding half-year. Whether deciding on a breakup or selecting a vote, individuals are increasingly turning to machines for counsel. Data suggests a significant portion of user prompts relate to personal life matters. Even more striking than our use of AI for advice is what occurs when we let it speak for us. Composition is now one of the most common uses for tools like ChatGPT, just behind everyday tasks. The celebrated American author Joan Didion famously said, “I write entirely to discover what I am thinking.” What transpires when we stop composing? Do we cease discovering?

Alarmingly, some evidence suggests the answer may be affirmative. A study conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used electroencephalography to track the cognitive activity of essay writers who had access to AI, traditional search engines, or no aids. Those who could rely on AI displayed the least cognitive engagement and had trouble accurately recalling their own work. Maybe most troubling was that over time, participants in the AI group became progressively lazier, copying large sections of text.

“Laziness and cowardice,” Kant wrote, “are the reasons why so great a proportion of men … remain in lifelong immaturity.”

Of course, AI's appeal lies in its efficiency. It saves time, reduces effort and – importantly – offers a new method 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 personal freedom in exchange for the reassuring certainty of obedience. AI offers a digital method of surrendering the burden of having to decide for oneself.

The Opacity Dilemma: Trust Without Understanding

AI's greatest allure is its capacity to perform tasks outside human capability – analyzing oceans of data at unprecedented speed. Stuck in the car in Marseille, this was, after all, why I chose to trust the app over my companion (a decision she interpreted as an insult). With access to all the data, certainly the app must know best – or so I thought.

The fundamental problem is that AI operates as a black box. It produces knowledge, but not always deepening human understanding. We cannot fully grasp how AI reaches its conclusions – even its creators admit this. Nor can we check its logic against clear, objective criteria. So when we follow AI's advice, we are not being guided by reason. We are back in the realm of faith. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, side with the machine – that may become our future guiding principle.

Using Without Losing: The Critical Balance

AI can be a powerful tool for mankind in scientific pursuit. It can aid in medical research, liberate us from tedious tasks, or manage administrative chores – work that are repetitive and are unfulfilling. All to the good. But Kant and his peers did not champion enlightenment just so humans could assemble better furniture or have extra free time. Critical thinking was not just about efficiency – it was a discipline of liberty and human self-determination.

Human thought is often chaotic and error-prone, but it forces us to debate, to doubt, to challenge concepts – and to acknowledge the boundaries of our own understanding. It builds confidence, both personally and as a society. For Kant, the exercise of reason was never only about information; it was about enabling 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 undeniable benefits AI brings, the key question is this: how can we harness its promise of superhuman intelligence without eroding human reasoning, the bedrock of the Enlightenment and of free societies itself? That is likely one of the defining questions of our time. It is a question we must strive not to delegate to the algorithm.