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This past summer, I found myself navigating in gridlocked traffic on the sweltering streets of Marseille. At an intersection, my friend in the passenger seat advised a right turn toward a renowned spot for bouillabaisse. Yet, the digital guide on my phone instructed us to continue straight. Weary and overheated, I heeded the app's directive. Moments later, we were stuck at a roadwork site.

A seemingly trivial event, maybe. But one that encapsulates a central question of our era, where technology touches almost every aspect of existence: who gets our trust to a greater degree – other people and our own intuition, 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-imposed immaturity." This state, he wrote, "represents the incapacity to use one's own understanding without direction from another." For ages, that guiding "other" for society was frequently the clergyman, the monarch, or the landowner – figures claiming to channel divine will. To comprehend phenomena like changing seasons, people sought answers in theology. In shaping 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 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 new dawn arrived: reason would replace superstition, and the human mind, liberated from dogma, would become the driver of advancement and a more ethical world.

Today, two and a half centuries later, one might wonder if we are slipping back into a form of intellectual immaturity. An app dictating a direction is just one example. AI risks becoming our new "other" – a unseen overseer that influences our decisions and behaviors. We are in danger of relinquishing the hard-won autonomy to reason for ourselves – and this time, not to gods or kings, but to lines of code.

The Swift Adoption and Hidden Risks of AI Dependence

ChatGPT debuted only in 2022, and already a global survey indicated that an vast number of people had engaged with artificial intelligence in the preceding half-year. Whether contemplating a breakup or choosing a candidate, individuals are looking to algorithms for guidance. Data suggests a large majority of user prompts concern non-work topics. Even more intriguing than our use of AI for judgment is what occurs when we allow it express for us. Writing is now one of the most common uses for tools like ChatGPT, second only to practical requests. The celebrated American author Joan Didion famously said, “I write purely to discover what I am thinking.” What occurs when we stop composing? Do we cease discovering?

Alarmingly, some evidence suggests the answer may be affirmative. A study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used brain monitoring to track the cognitive activity of participants who had access to 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 concerning was that over time, participants in the AI group became increasingly reliant, pasting entire blocks of text.

“Inertia and fear,” Kant wrote, “are the reasons why so many of men … remain in lifelong immaturity.”

Of course, AI's attraction stems from its efficiency. It saves time, reduces effort and – critically – offers a new method to offload accountability. 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 autonomy in for the sake of the comforting security of subordination. AI offers a digital avenue for surrendering the weight of having to decide for oneself.

The Opacity Dilemma: Trust Without Understanding

AI's greatest allure is its capacity to perform tasks beyond our minds – sifting through vast datasets at lightning pace. Sitting in the car in Marseille, this was, ultimately, why I chose to trust the machine over my companion (a choice she interpreted as an insult). With knowledge of real-time information, surely the app had superior insight – or so I thought.

The core issue is that AI operates as a black box. It generates answers, but not always deepening human comprehension. We cannot fully grasp how AI reaches its conclusions – including its programmers admit this. Nor can we verify its logic against clear, objective criteria. So when we heed AI's advice, we are not being guided by reason. We are returning to the realm of belief. 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 powerful tool for humanity in rational inquiry. It can help medical research, liberate us from "bullshit jobs", or manage administrative chores – duties that demand little thought and offer little satisfaction. All to the good. But Kant and his contemporaries did not advocate for reason over faith just so humans could assemble better furniture or have extra free time. Independent thought was not just about productivity – it was a discipline of liberty and human self-determination.

Human thought is inherently messy and error-prone, but it forces us to debate, to question, to test ideas – and to acknowledge the boundaries of our own understanding. It builds self-reliance, both individually and collectively. For Kant, the exercise of reason was never only about acquiring knowledge; it was about empowering people to become authors of their own destinies, and to oppose control. It was about building a ethical society grounded in the common foundation of rational discourse, rather than blind belief.

With all the advantages 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 liberal democracy 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 algorithm.