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This recent season, I found myself navigating in gridlocked traffic on the scorching streets of Marseille. At an intersection, my companion in the front seat advised a right turn toward a renowned spot for bouillabaisse. Yet, the digital guide on my phone commanded us to go forward. Fatigued and in a stifling car, I heeded the algorithm's directive. Minutes later, we were stuck at a construction site.

A seemingly trivial event, maybe. But one that captures a central question of our era, where digital tools permeates almost every aspect of existence: who gets our trust more – other people and our personal instincts, or the algorithm?

A Call for Intellectual Maturity and A Contemporary Backslide

The influential German philosopher Immanuel Kant famously described the Enlightenment as "humanity's emergence from its self-inflicted immaturity." This immaturity, he wrote, "represents the inability to use one's own understanding without direction from an external source." For centuries, that directing force for society was often the priest, the monarch, or the feudal lord – entities claiming to speak for God's voice. To comprehend phenomena like volcanic eruptions, people looked for explanations in theology. In organizing the social world, from commerce to matters of the heart, religious doctrine served as the main compass.

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

Kant argued that humans had the capacity for reason. They just didn't have the confidence to employ it. With revolutions in America and France, a fresh era emerged: reason would supplant blind faith, and the intellect, freed from dogma, would become the driver of progress and a more ethical world.

Today, 250 years later, one might wonder if we are slipping back into a form of intellectual immaturity. An app dictating a direction is merely the start. Artificial intelligence threatens to become our contemporary authority – a silent overseer that influences our decisions and actions. We risk relinquishing the historically earned autonomy to think independently – and this time, not to deities or rulers, but to computer programs.

The Swift Adoption and Hidden Risks of AI Dependence

ChatGPT debuted only in 2022, and already a recent study found that an vast number of people had used AI in the previous six months. Whether deciding on ending a relationship or choosing a candidate, individuals are looking to machines for counsel. Data suggests a significant portion of user queries relate to non-work topics. Even more striking than our reliance on AI for advice is what occurs when we let it speak for us. Composition is now among the top uses for tools like ChatGPT, second only to everyday tasks. The celebrated American author Joan Didion once remarked, “I write entirely to discover what I am thinking.” What occurs when we cease writing? Do we lose that path?

Worryingly, some evidence hints the outcome may be affirmative. A study conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used brain monitoring to observe the mental engagement of participants who had access to AI, Google, or no aids. Those who could use AI showed the lowest brain activity and had trouble quoting their own work. Perhaps most troubling was that after a few months, individuals 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 perpetual nonage.”

Of course, AI's appeal lies in its convenience. It is fast, minimizes work and – critically – offers a new method to offload responsibility. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm argued that the appeal of authoritarianism could be understood by a preference to give up personal freedom in exchange for the comforting security of obedience. AI presents a digital method of relinquishing the weight of having to think and choose.

The Opacity Dilemma: Trust Without Understanding

AI's primary draw is its capacity to accomplish things outside human capability – sifting through vast datasets at unprecedented speed. Stuck in the car in Marseille, this was, after all, why I chose to believe the machine over my friend (a choice she interpreted as an affront). With access to all the data, certainly the app must know best – or so I believed.

The fundamental problem is that AI operates as a opaque system. It produces answers, but without necessarily fostering human understanding. We do not truly know how AI reaches its decisions – including its programmers admit this. Nor can we check its reasoning against transparent standards. So when we heed AI's recommendation, we are not being guided by reason. We are returning to the domain of faith. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, trust the machine – that could be our 21st-century credo.

Harnessing Without Eroding: The Critical Balance

AI can be a formidable ally for humanity in rational inquiry. It can aid in inventing drugs, free us from tedious tasks, or manage administrative chores – duties that demand little thought and offer little satisfaction. All to the good. But Kant and his contemporaries did not champion reason over faith just so humans could assemble better furniture or have extra free time. Independent thought was not merely about efficiency – it was a practice of freedom and human self-determination.

Human thought is often chaotic and fallible, but it forces us to argue, to doubt, to challenge concepts – and to recognize the limits of our own understanding. It builds self-reliance, both individually and as a society. For Kant, the use of reason was never only about information; it was about enabling people to become agents of their own lives, and to oppose domination. It was about building a ethical society based on the common foundation of reason and debate, rather than unquestioning acceptance.

With all the advantages AI brings, the key question remains: how can we harness its promise of advanced capability without eroding human reasoning, the bedrock of the Enlightenment and of liberal democracy itself? That is likely one of the central dilemmas of our century. It is a question we would do well not to outsource to the machine.