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This past summer, I was caught in congested traffic on the sweltering streets of a southern French city. At an intersection, my companion in the passenger seat advised a right turn toward a famous spot for fish soup. Yet, the navigation app on my phone commanded us to go forward. Fatigued and overheated, I followed the app's directive. Minutes later, we were stuck at a construction site.

A minor event, maybe. But one that encapsulates a central question of our era, where digital tools touches almost every aspect of our lives: whom do we trust to a greater degree – other people and our own intuition, or the algorithm?

The Enlightenment's Promise and Our Modern Relapse

The influential German philosopher Immanuel Kant once defined the Enlightenment as "man's release from its self-inflicted nonage." This immaturity, he argued, "represents the incapacity to use one's personal reason without guidance from another." For ages, that guiding "other" for human thought was often the clergyman, the king, or the landowner – entities purporting to speak for divine will. To comprehend phenomena like volcanic eruptions, people looked for explanations in theology. In organizing the social world, from economics to matters of the heart, faith acted as the main compass.

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

Kant maintained that humans had the capacity for reason. They simply lacked the boldness to use it. With upheavals in America and France, a fresh era arrived: logic would replace blind faith, and the human mind, freed from dogma, would become the engine of progress and a better world.

Today, 250 years later, one might question if we are quietly regressing into a state of dependency. An app suggesting a driving route is just one example. Artificial intelligence threatens to become our new "other" – a silent guide that steers our decisions and actions. We risk ceding the historically earned autonomy to think independently – and this time, not to gods or kings, but to computer programs.

The Swift Adoption and Subtle Dangers of Algorithmic Reliance

ChatGPT was launched only in 2022, and already a recent study found that an overwhelming majority of people had used AI in the previous six months. Whether deciding on ending a relationship or choosing a candidate, individuals are increasingly turning to machines for counsel. Research suggests a significant portion of user prompts concern personal life matters. Even more striking than our reliance on AI for judgment is what happens when we let it speak for us. Composition is now among the most common uses for tools like ChatGPT, second only to practical requests. The late American author Joan Didion famously said, “I write entirely 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 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used electroencephalography to track the cognitive activity of participants who had access to AI, Google, or no aids. Those who could rely on AI displayed the lowest cognitive engagement and had trouble accurately recalling their own work. Perhaps most troubling was that after a few months, participants in the AI group grew progressively lazier, copying entire blocks of text.

“Inertia and fear,” Kant wrote, “are the reasons why so great a proportion of men … remain in perpetual nonage.”

Certainly, AI's appeal stems from its efficiency. It is fast, minimizes work and – importantly – offers a new method to abdicate responsibility. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm argued that the rise of fascism could be partly explained by a human tendency to surrender personal freedom in for the sake of the reassuring certainty of subordination. AI offers a modern method of relinquishing the weight of having to think and choose.

The Black Box Problem: Faith Over Reason

AI's primary draw is its capacity to accomplish things outside our minds – sifting through vast datasets at lightning pace. Stuck in the car in Marseille, this was, after all, why I opted to trust the machine over my companion (a decision she took as an insult). With knowledge of real-time information, surely the app had superior insight – or so I believed.

The fundamental problem is that AI operates as a black box. It generates answers, but not always fostering human comprehension. We cannot fully grasp the process behind its decisions – even its creators acknowledge the opacity. Nor can we check its logic against clear, objective criteria. So when we heed AI's recommendation, we are not being led by logic. We are back in the domain of faith. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, side with the machine – that may become our future credo.

Using Without Losing: The Critical Balance

AI can be a powerful tool for mankind in scientific pursuit. It can aid in inventing drugs, liberate us from tedious tasks, or manage administrative chores – work that are repetitive and are unfulfilling. This is beneficial. But Kant and his contemporaries did not champion enlightenment just so humans could optimize chores 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 test ideas – and to acknowledge the boundaries of our own understanding. It fosters self-reliance, both individually and as a society. For Kant, the exercise of reason was never only about information; it was about empowering people to become agents of their own destinies, and to oppose domination. It was about building a moral community grounded in the common foundation of reason and debate, rather than blind belief.

With all the undeniable benefits AI offers, the paramount challenge remains: how can we harness its promise of advanced capability without eroding human rationality, the cornerstone 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 delegate to the machine.