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This past summer, I found myself navigating in congested traffic on the scorching streets of a southern French city. At a crossing, my companion in the passenger seat suggested a right turn toward a famous spot for bouillabaisse. However, the digital guide on my phone instructed us to go forward. Weary and overheated, I followed the algorithm's directive. Moments later, we were stranded at a roadwork site.

A seemingly trivial incident, perhaps. But one that encapsulates a central question of our era, where digital tools touches almost every aspect of our lives: who gets our trust to a greater degree – fellow humans and our own intuition, or the algorithm?

The Enlightenment's Promise and A Contemporary Backslide

The influential German philosopher Immanuel Kant famously described the Enlightenment as "man's release from its self-inflicted immaturity." This state, he wrote, "represents the inability to use one's own understanding without direction from another." For centuries, that guiding "other" for society was often the priest, the monarch, or the feudal lord – figures purporting to speak for God's voice. To comprehend natural events like volcanic eruptions, people looked for explanations in religion. In organizing the fabric of society, from commerce to love, religious doctrine acted as the primary guide.

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

Kant maintained that humans always possessed the ability to think rationally. They just didn't have the boldness to use it. With upheavals in America and France, a new dawn arrived: reason would supplant blind faith, and the human mind, freed from dogma, would become the driver of advancement and a better world.

Now, 250 years later, one might question if we are slipping back into a state of intellectual immaturity. An app dictating a direction is just one example. Artificial intelligence threatens to become our new "other" – a unseen overseer that steers our decisions and behaviors. We are in danger of relinquishing the hard-won autonomy to reason for ourselves – and this time, not to deities or rulers, but to lines of code.

The Rapid Rise and Subtle Dangers of AI Dependence

ChatGPT was launched only in 2022, and already a global survey indicated that an overwhelming majority of respondents had engaged with artificial intelligence in the preceding half-year. Whether contemplating a breakup or choosing a candidate, individuals are increasingly turning to machines for guidance. Research suggests a large majority of user prompts relate to personal life matters. Even more striking than our reliance on AI for advice is what happens when we let it express for us. Writing is now among the top uses for generative AI, second only to everyday tasks. The celebrated American author Joan Didion once remarked, “I write purely to discover what I am thinking.” What transpires when we stop composing? Do we cease discovering?

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 essay writers who had could use AI, traditional search engines, or no aids. Those who could rely on AI displayed the lowest brain activity and had difficulty accurately recalling their own work. Perhaps most troubling was that over time, participants in the AI group became progressively lazier, pasting large sections of text.

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

Of course, AI's attraction stems from its efficiency. It is fast, minimizes work and – importantly – offers a new method to offload responsibility. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm proposed that the appeal of authoritarianism could be understood by a preference to give up personal freedom in exchange for the reassuring certainty of obedience. AI offers a digital method of surrendering the weight of having to decide for oneself.

The Black Box Problem: Faith Over Reason

AI's primary draw is its ability to perform tasks outside our minds – analyzing oceans of data at lightning pace. Stuck in the car in Marseille, this was, ultimately, why I opted to believe the machine over my friend (a decision she took as an affront). With access to all the data, surely the algorithm had superior insight – or so I believed.

The core issue is that AI operates as a opaque system. It generates knowledge, but not always fostering human comprehension. We do not truly know the process behind its conclusions – including its programmers admit this. Nor can we verify its logic against transparent standards. So when we follow AI's advice, we are not being led by logic. We are back in the realm of belief. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, trust the machine – that may become our 21st-century credo.

Using Without Losing: The Essential Challenge

AI can be a powerful tool for humanity in rational inquiry. It can aid in medical research, free us from "bullshit jobs", or manage administrative chores – duties that demand little thought and are unfulfilling. This is beneficial. But Kant and his contemporaries did not champion enlightenment just so humans could assemble better furniture or have more leisure. Critical thinking was not just about efficiency – it was a practice of freedom and human emancipation.

Human thought is inherently messy and error-prone, but it forces us to argue, to question, to challenge concepts – and to acknowledge the boundaries of our own understanding. It builds self-reliance, both personally and collectively. For Kant, the exercise of reason was never solely about acquiring knowledge; it was about enabling people to become authors of their own destinies, and to resist domination. It was about creating a ethical society based on the shared principle of rational discourse, rather than unquestioning acceptance.

With all the undeniable benefits AI brings, the key question remains: how can we leverage its potential of advanced capability without eroding human rationality, the bedrock of the Enlightenment and of free societies themselves? That is likely one of the defining questions of our time. It is a question we must strive not to outsource to the machine.