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This past summer, I was caught in congested traffic on the sweltering streets of Marseille. At an intersection, my companion in the passenger seat suggested a right turn toward a famous spot for fish soup. However, the digital guide on my phone commanded us to go forward. Weary and in a stifling car, I heeded the app's directive. Moments later, we were stranded at a construction site.

A minor incident, perhaps. But one that captures a defining dilemma of our era, where technology touches almost every aspect of existence: whom do we trust to a greater degree – other people and our own intuition, or the algorithm?

A Call for Intellectual Maturity and Our Modern Relapse

The influential German philosopher Immanuel Kant once defined the Enlightenment as "man's release from its self-imposed nonage." This state, he wrote, "represents the incapacity to use one's own understanding without guidance from another." For centuries, that guiding "other" for society was often the priest, the king, or the landowner – figures purporting to speak for God's voice. To explain phenomena like changing seasons, people sought answers in religion. In organizing the social world, from economics to matters of the heart, religious doctrine served as the main compass.

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

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

Now, 250 years later, one might question if we are slipping back into a form of dependency. An app suggesting a direction is merely the start. AI risks becoming our contemporary authority – a silent guide that steers our decisions and behaviors. We risk relinquishing the hard-won courage to think independently – and now, not to gods or kings, but to computer programs.

The Rapid Rise and Hidden Risks of Algorithmic Reliance

ChatGPT was launched only in 2022, and already a global survey indicated that an overwhelming majority of people had used AI in the preceding half-year. Whether deciding on a breakup or selecting a vote, individuals are increasingly turning to machines for guidance. Data suggests a large majority of user prompts relate to personal life matters. Even more intriguing than our use of AI for judgment is what happens when we allow it speak for us. Writing is now one of the most common uses for tools like ChatGPT, second only to everyday tasks. The celebrated American author Joan Didion once remarked, “I write purely to find out what I am thinking.” What transpires when we stop composing? Do we cease discovering?

Alarmingly, some evidence hints the answer may be yes. A study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used brain monitoring to observe the cognitive activity of essay writers who had access to AI, traditional search engines, or no aids. Those who could use AI showed the lowest cognitive engagement and had difficulty quoting their own work. Maybe most troubling was that over time, participants in the AI group grew increasingly reliant, pasting entire blocks of text.

“Laziness and cowardice,” Kant wrote, “are the reasons why so many of men … remain in perpetual nonage.”

Certainly, AI's appeal lies in its convenience. It saves time, minimizes work and – importantly – offers a novel way to abdicate responsibility. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm proposed that the appeal of authoritarianism could be partly explained by a human tendency to surrender autonomy in exchange for the comforting security of obedience. AI offers a modern avenue for relinquishing the weight of having to decide for oneself.

The Black Box Problem: Trust Without Understanding

AI's greatest allure is its ability to accomplish things outside human capability – sifting through oceans of data at unprecedented speed. Sitting in the car in Marseille, this was, ultimately, why I chose to believe the app over my friend (a choice she interpreted as an affront). With knowledge of real-time information, certainly the app had superior insight – or so I thought.

The fundamental problem is that AI operates as a black box. It generates answers, but without necessarily fostering human understanding. We cannot fully grasp how AI reaches its conclusions – even its programmers admit this. Nor can we check 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 belief. 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 formidable ally for humanity in rational inquiry. It can help medical research, liberate us from tedious tasks, or handle taxes – work that demand little thought and are unfulfilling. All to the good. But Kant and his contemporaries did not champion reason over faith just so humans could assemble better furniture or have more leisure. Independent thought was not merely about productivity – it was a discipline of freedom and human self-determination.

Human thought is inherently messy and fallible, but it compels us to debate, to question, to challenge concepts – and to recognize the limits of our own knowledge. It fosters self-reliance, both personally and collectively. For Kant, the exercise of reason was never solely about information; it was about enabling people to become agents of their own destinies, and to oppose domination. It was about building a ethical society grounded in the common foundation of rational discourse, rather than blind belief.

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