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This recent season, I found myself navigating in gridlocked traffic on the sweltering streets of Marseille. At a crossing, my friend in the front seat advised a right turn toward a famous spot for bouillabaisse. However, the navigation app on my phone commanded us to continue straight. Fatigued and overheated, I heeded the app's advice. Minutes later, we were stranded at a construction site.

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

A Call for Intellectual Maturity and Our Modern Relapse

The influential German philosopher Immanuel Kant famously described the Enlightenment as "man's release from its self-inflicted nonage." This state, he wrote, "is the inability to use one's personal reason without guidance from an external source." For ages, that directing force for human thought was often the clergyman, the king, or the feudal lord – entities purporting to channel divine will. To comprehend natural events like changing seasons, people looked for explanations in religion. In organizing the fabric of society, from economics to matters of the heart, faith acted as the primary guide.

“Sapere aude!” or “Dare to use your own understanding!”

Kant maintained that humans had the ability to think rationally. They just didn't have the confidence to employ it. With revolutions in the 18th century, a fresh era arrived: reason would replace blind faith, and the human mind, liberated from authority, would become the driver of advancement and a more ethical world.

Now, 250 years later, one might wonder if we are slipping back into a form of dependency. An app suggesting a direction is merely the start. AI risks becoming our new "other" – a silent overseer that steers our choices and behaviors. We risk relinquishing the hard-won courage to reason for ourselves – and this time, not to deities or rulers, but to computer programs.

The Swift Adoption and Subtle Dangers of Algorithmic Reliance

ChatGPT debuted only in 2022, and already a global survey found that an vast number of people had engaged with artificial intelligence in the preceding half-year. Whether contemplating ending a relationship or selecting a vote, individuals are increasingly turning to machines for counsel. Data suggests a large majority of user prompts concern personal life matters. Even more intriguing than our use of AI for advice is what happens when we allow it express for us. Writing is now one of the most common uses for generative AI, second only to everyday tasks. The celebrated American author Joan Didion once remarked, “I write purely to find out what I am thinking.” What occurs when we cease writing? Do we cease discovering?

Worryingly, some evidence hints the answer may be affirmative. A study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used brain monitoring to observe the mental engagement of participants who had could use AI, Google, or no aids. Those who could rely on AI displayed the least cognitive engagement and had difficulty quoting their own work. Perhaps most concerning 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 great a proportion of men … remain in perpetual nonage.”

Certainly, AI's attraction stems from its efficiency. It saves time, reduces effort and – critically – offers a novel way 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 personal freedom in exchange for the comforting security of subordination. AI presents a modern method of relinquishing the burden of having to decide for oneself.

The Black Box Problem: Trust Without Understanding

AI's primary draw is its capacity 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 trust the app over my friend (a decision she took as an insult). With access to all the data, surely the algorithm had superior insight – or so I thought.

The fundamental problem is that AI is a black box. It produces knowledge, but without necessarily fostering human understanding. We cannot fully grasp the process behind its conclusions – including its programmers admit this. Nor can we verify its reasoning against clear, objective criteria. So when we heed AI's advice, we are not being guided by reason. We are back in the domain of faith. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, side with the machine – that could be our future credo.

Harnessing Without Eroding: The Essential Challenge

AI can be a powerful tool for humanity in scientific pursuit. It can aid in medical research, free us from tedious tasks, or manage taxes – duties that are repetitive and offer little satisfaction. This is beneficial. But Kant and his contemporaries did not champion enlightenment just so humans could assemble better furniture or have extra free time. Independent thought was not merely about efficiency – it was a practice of liberty and human emancipation.

Human thought is inherently messy and error-prone, but it compels us to debate, to doubt, to test ideas – and to recognize the limits of our own understanding. It builds confidence, both individually and collectively. For Kant, the use of reason was never solely about information; it was about empowering people to become authors of their own destinies, and to resist control. It was about creating a moral community based on the shared principle of rational discourse, rather than unquestioning acceptance.

With all the undeniable benefits AI offers, the paramount challenge is this: how can we leverage its potential of advanced capability without undermining human rationality, the bedrock of the Enlightenment and of free societies itself? That may be one of the defining questions of our time. It is a question we would do well not to outsource to the machine.