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

A minor incident, perhaps. But one that encapsulates a defining dilemma of our era, where technology touches nearly every facet of existence: whom do we trust to a greater degree – other people and our personal instincts, or the algorithm?

A Call for Intellectual Maturity and A Contemporary Backslide

The influential German philosopher Immanuel Kant once defined the Enlightenment as "humanity's emergence from its self-inflicted nonage." This immaturity, he argued, "represents the incapacity to use one's personal reason without guidance from an external source." For centuries, that directing force for human thought was often the clergyman, the king, or the landowner – entities claiming to speak for God's voice. To comprehend phenomena like changing seasons, people looked for explanations in religion. In organizing the social world, from commerce to matters of the heart, faith acted as the main compass.

“Sapere aude!” or “Dare to use your reason!”

Kant argued that humans had the ability to think rationally. They just didn't have the boldness to use it. With upheavals in America and France, a fresh era emerged: reason would supplant blind faith, and the human mind, freed from dogma, would become the driver of progress and a better world.

Today, two and a half centuries later, one might question if we are slipping back into a form of dependency. An app suggesting a driving route is merely the start. Artificial intelligence risks becoming our new "other" – a unseen overseer that steers our decisions and actions. We risk relinquishing the hard-won courage to think independently – and now, not to deities or rulers, but to lines of code.

The Swift Adoption and Hidden Risks of Algorithmic Reliance

ChatGPT debuted a mere three years ago, and already a global survey indicated that an vast number of people had engaged with artificial intelligence in the previous six months. Whether deciding on a breakup or choosing a candidate, individuals are looking to algorithms for guidance. Data suggests a significant portion of user queries 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. Writing is now among the most common uses for tools like ChatGPT, just behind everyday tasks. 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, some evidence suggests the answer may be affirmative. A study conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used brain monitoring to observe the mental engagement of participants who had could use AI, traditional search engines, or no aids. 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, individuals in the AI group became progressively lazier, copying large sections of text.

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

Certainly, AI's attraction stems from its convenience. It is fast, reduces effort and – importantly – offers a new method to offload accountability. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm argued that the appeal of authoritarianism could be partly explained by a preference to surrender autonomy in exchange for the comforting security of subordination. AI offers a modern method of relinquishing the burden of having to think and choose.

The Opacity Dilemma: Faith Over Reason

AI's primary draw is its capacity to perform tasks outside human capability – sifting through vast datasets at unprecedented speed. Sitting in the car in Marseille, this was, ultimately, why I chose to trust the app over my companion (a decision she interpreted as an affront). With knowledge of all the data, certainly the app had superior insight – or so I thought.

The fundamental problem is that AI operates as a black box. It generates answers, but not always deepening human understanding. We cannot fully grasp how AI reaches its conclusions – even its creators acknowledge the opacity. Nor can we verify its reasoning against transparent standards. So when we follow AI's advice, we are not being led by logic. We are back in the realm of faith. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, side with the machine – that may become our 21st-century guiding principle.

Using Without Losing: The Essential Challenge

AI can be a powerful tool for mankind in scientific pursuit. It can aid in medical research, liberate us from "bullshit jobs", or manage taxes – work that are repetitive and offer little satisfaction. All to the good. But Kant and his peers did not advocate for enlightenment just so humans could assemble better furniture or have extra free time. Critical thinking was not just about productivity – it was a discipline of liberty and human emancipation.

Human thought is inherently messy and fallible, but it compels us to argue, to doubt, to challenge concepts – and to recognize the limits of our own knowledge. It fosters confidence, both individually and collectively. 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 grounded in the common foundation of rational discourse, rather than unquestioning acceptance.

With all the advantages AI offers, the key question remains: how can we harness its potential of superhuman intelligence without undermining human reasoning, the cornerstone of the Enlightenment and of liberal democracy themselves? That is likely one of the central dilemmas of our century. It is a question we would do well not to delegate to the machine.