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This recent season, I was caught in gridlocked traffic on the sweltering streets of a southern French city. At a crossing, my friend in the front seat suggested a right turn toward a renowned spot for fish soup. Yet, the navigation app on my phone commanded us to go forward. Weary and overheated, I followed the app's directive. Minutes later, we were stranded at a construction site.

A minor incident, maybe. But one that captures a central question of our era, where technology touches almost every aspect of existence: who gets our trust to a greater degree – fellow humans and our own intuition, or the machine?

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-imposed nonage." This immaturity, he wrote, "is the incapacity to use one's own understanding without guidance from an external source." For ages, that directing force for human thought was often the priest, the king, or the landowner – figures claiming to speak for God's voice. To explain natural events like volcanic eruptions, people sought answers in religion. In organizing the social world, from economics to love, faith served as the main compass.

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

Kant argued that humans always possessed the capacity for reason. They just didn't have the confidence to employ it. With revolutions in the 18th century, a new dawn arrived: reason would supplant blind faith, and the intellect, freed from authority, would become the engine of progress and a better world.

Now, 250 years later, one might wonder if we are quietly regressing into a form of intellectual immaturity. An app dictating a driving route is just one example. AI risks becoming our new "other" – a silent guide that steers our decisions and behaviors. We risk ceding the hard-won autonomy to reason for ourselves – 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 global survey indicated that an overwhelming majority of respondents had engaged with artificial intelligence in the preceding half-year. Whether contemplating a breakup or selecting a vote, individuals are increasingly turning to algorithms for counsel. Data suggests a significant portion of user prompts relate to non-work topics. Even more striking than our use of AI for judgment is what occurs when we allow it speak for us. Writing is now among the top uses for generative AI, just behind everyday tasks. The late American author Joan Didion once remarked, “I write entirely to find out what I am thinking.” What transpires when we cease writing? Do we lose that path?

Worryingly, some evidence hints the answer may be yes. A study conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used brain monitoring to observe the cognitive activity of participants who had access to AI, Google, or nothing. Those who could use AI showed the lowest brain activity and had difficulty accurately recalling their own work. Perhaps most concerning was that over time, individuals in the AI group became increasingly reliant, copying entire blocks of text.

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

Of course, AI's appeal lies in its convenience. It saves time, reduces effort and – importantly – offers a new method to offload responsibility. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm argued that the appeal of authoritarianism could be understood by a preference to give up personal freedom in exchange for the comforting security of subordination. AI offers a modern method of surrendering the weight of having to decide for oneself.

The Black Box Problem: Faith Over Reason

AI's primary draw is its capacity to perform tasks beyond human capability – analyzing vast datasets at lightning pace. Stuck in the car in Marseille, this was, after all, why I chose to believe the machine over my friend (a decision she interpreted as an affront). With knowledge of real-time information, certainly the app must know best – or so I believed.

The fundamental problem is that AI is a opaque system. It generates answers, but without necessarily deepening human understanding. We do not truly know the process behind its decisions – including its programmers admit this. Nor can we verify its logic against clear, objective criteria. So when we heed AI's recommendation, we are not being led by logic. We are returning to the domain of belief. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, trust the machine – that could be our future guiding principle.

Using Without Losing: The Critical Balance

AI can be a formidable ally for humanity in rational inquiry. It can help inventing drugs, free us from "bullshit jobs", or manage taxes – duties that demand little thought and are unfulfilling. This is beneficial. But Kant and his contemporaries did not advocate for reason over faith just so humans could optimize chores or have more leisure. Independent thought was not merely about efficiency – it was a practice of freedom and human self-determination.

Human thought is inherently messy and fallible, but it compels us to argue, to question, to challenge concepts – and to acknowledge the limits of our own knowledge. It fosters confidence, both personally and as a society. 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 oppose domination. It was about creating a moral community grounded in the common foundation of rational discourse, rather than blind belief.

With all the undeniable benefits AI offers, the paramount challenge remains: how can we harness its potential of superhuman intelligence without undermining human rationality, the cornerstone of the Enlightenment and of liberal democracy itself? That may be one of the defining questions of our century. It is a question we must strive not to outsource to the machine.