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This past summer, I found myself navigating in gridlocked traffic on the sweltering streets of Marseille. At a crossing, my friend in the front seat suggested a right turn toward a famous spot for bouillabaisse. However, the navigation app on my phone instructed us to continue straight. Weary and overheated, I heeded the algorithm's advice. Moments later, we were stuck at a roadwork site.

A seemingly trivial incident, maybe. But one that encapsulates a central question of our time, where technology touches nearly every facet of existence: whom do we trust to a greater degree – fellow humans and our personal instincts, or the algorithm?

A Call for Intellectual Maturity and A Contemporary Backslide

The influential German philosopher Immanuel Kant once defined the Enlightenment as "humanity's emergence from its self-imposed immaturity." This immaturity, he argued, "represents the incapacity to use one's own understanding without direction from an external source." For ages, that directing force for society was often the clergyman, the monarch, or the landowner – figures claiming to speak for God's voice. To explain phenomena like volcanic eruptions, people sought answers in religion. In organizing the fabric of society, from commerce to love, religious doctrine served as the main compass.

“Sapere aude!” or “Have courage to use your reason!”

Kant maintained that humans always possessed the capacity for reason. They just didn't have the boldness to use it. With revolutions in the 18th century, a fresh era emerged: logic would replace blind faith, and the intellect, freed from authority, would become the driver of advancement and a better world.

Today, two and a half centuries later, one might wonder if we are quietly regressing into a state of intellectual immaturity. An app suggesting a driving route is just one example. AI threatens to become our contemporary authority – a unseen guide that steers our decisions and actions. We are in danger of ceding the hard-won courage to reason for ourselves – and now, not to gods or kings, but to computer programs.

The Swift Adoption and Subtle Dangers of AI Dependence

ChatGPT was launched a mere three years ago, and already a global survey found that an overwhelming majority of people had used AI in the preceding half-year. Whether contemplating a breakup or choosing a candidate, individuals are looking to machines for guidance. Research suggests a significant portion of user queries concern non-work topics. Even more intriguing than our use of AI for judgment is what happens when we allow it express for us. Composition is now among the top uses for tools like ChatGPT, second only to everyday tasks. The celebrated American author Joan Didion once remarked, “I write entirely to discover what I am thinking.” What occurs when we cease writing? Do we cease discovering?

Worryingly, some evidence hints the outcome 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, traditional search engines, or nothing. Those who could rely on AI displayed the lowest brain activity and had trouble quoting their own work. Maybe most troubling was that after a few months, participants in the AI group grew increasingly reliant, pasting large sections of text.

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

Certainly, AI's appeal stems from its efficiency. It saves time, minimizes work and – importantly – offers a novel way to offload responsibility. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm proposed that the rise of fascism could be understood by a preference to surrender autonomy in exchange for the comforting security of subordination. AI offers a modern avenue for surrendering the weight of having to think and choose.

The Opacity Dilemma: Faith Over Reason

AI's primary draw is its capacity to accomplish things beyond human capability – analyzing oceans of data at unprecedented speed. Sitting in the car in Marseille, this was, ultimately, why I opted to trust the app over my companion (a choice she interpreted as an affront). With access to real-time information, surely the algorithm must know best – or so I thought.

The fundamental problem is that AI operates as a black box. It produces knowledge, but not always fostering human understanding. We cannot fully grasp how AI reaches its conclusions – even its programmers acknowledge the opacity. Nor can we verify its reasoning against clear, objective criteria. So when we follow AI's recommendation, we are not being guided by reason. We are back in the realm of faith. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, side with the machine – that could be our future guiding principle.

Using Without Losing: The Critical Balance

AI can be a powerful tool for mankind in rational inquiry. It can aid in medical research, free us from "bullshit jobs", or handle taxes – duties that are repetitive and offer little satisfaction. This is beneficial. But Kant and his peers did not champion reason over faith just so humans could assemble better furniture or have extra free time. Critical thinking was not just about efficiency – it was a practice of freedom and human self-determination.

Human thought is often chaotic and error-prone, but it forces us to debate, to question, to challenge concepts – and to acknowledge the boundaries of our own knowledge. It builds self-reliance, both individually and as a society. For Kant, the use of reason was never only about acquiring knowledge; it was about enabling people to become agents of their own lives, and to oppose domination. It was about creating 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 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 time. It is a question we would do well not to delegate to the algorithm.