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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 passenger seat suggested a right turn toward a renowned spot for fish soup. Yet, the navigation app on my phone commanded us to continue straight. Weary and in a stifling car, I heeded the app's directive. Minutes later, we were stuck at a roadwork site.

A seemingly trivial event, perhaps. 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 machine?

A Call for Intellectual Maturity and Our Modern Relapse

The renowned German philosopher Immanuel Kant once defined the Enlightenment as "man's release from its self-imposed immaturity." This state, he argued, "is the incapacity to use one's own understanding without direction from an external source." For centuries, that guiding "other" for society was frequently the priest, the king, or the feudal lord – figures claiming to channel divine will. To comprehend phenomena like changing seasons, people looked for explanations in religion. In shaping the fabric of society, from commerce to matters of the heart, religious doctrine acted as the main compass.

“Sapere aude!” or “Dare to use your reason!”

Kant argued that humans had the capacity for reason. They just didn't have the boldness to employ it. With revolutions in the 18th century, a new dawn emerged: logic would supplant superstition, and the intellect, liberated from dogma, would become the driver of progress and a better world.

Now, two and a half centuries later, one might wonder if we are slipping back into a state of dependency. An app suggesting a driving route is merely the start. AI threatens to become our new "other" – a unseen guide that influences our decisions and behaviors. We risk relinquishing the historically earned autonomy to reason for ourselves – and this time, not to deities or rulers, but to lines of code.

The Rapid Rise and Subtle Dangers of Algorithmic Reliance

ChatGPT was launched only in 2022, and yet a recent study found that an overwhelming majority of respondents had used AI in the preceding half-year. Whether contemplating a breakup or selecting a vote, individuals are looking to algorithms for counsel. Data suggests a significant portion of user queries relate to non-work topics. Even more striking than our use of AI for judgment is what happens when we allow it express for us. Writing is now one of the top uses for generative AI, second only to everyday tasks. The late American author Joan Didion once remarked, “I write purely to discover what I am thinking.” What transpires when we cease writing? Do we lose that path?

Alarmingly, some evidence suggests the answer may be affirmative. A study conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used electroencephalography to observe the cognitive activity of essay writers who had access to AI, Google, or nothing. Those who could use AI displayed the least brain activity and had trouble quoting their own work. Perhaps most concerning was that over time, individuals in the AI group grew increasingly reliant, pasting large sections of text.

“Inertia and fear,” Kant wrote, “are the reasons why so great a proportion of men … stay in lifelong immaturity.”

Certainly, AI's attraction lies in its efficiency. It is fast, minimizes work and – critically – offers a new method to abdicate accountability. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm proposed that the appeal of authoritarianism could be understood by a human tendency to surrender personal freedom in exchange for the reassuring certainty of obedience. AI offers a digital method of surrendering the burden of having to think and choose.

The Black Box Problem: Faith Over Reason

AI's primary draw is its capacity to perform tasks outside our minds – sifting through oceans of data at unprecedented speed. Sitting in the car in Marseille, this was, after all, why I opted to believe the machine over my friend (a choice she took as an affront). With knowledge of real-time information, certainly the algorithm must know best – or so I believed.

The fundamental problem is that AI operates as a opaque system. It generates knowledge, but not always deepening human comprehension. We do not truly know the process behind its conclusions – even its programmers admit this. Nor can we verify its reasoning against clear, objective criteria. So when we heed AI's recommendation, we are not being led by logic. We are returning to the realm 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 formidable ally for humanity in scientific pursuit. It can help inventing drugs, free us from tedious tasks, or handle taxes – work that are repetitive and are unfulfilling. All to the good. But Kant and his peers did not advocate for enlightenment just so humans could optimize chores or have more leisure. Independent thought was not just about efficiency – it was a practice of freedom and human self-determination.

Human thought is inherently messy and error-prone, but it forces us to argue, to question, to challenge concepts – and to acknowledge the limits of our own understanding. It builds self-reliance, both personally and collectively. For Kant, the use of reason was never solely about information; it was about enabling people to become authors of their own lives, and to oppose control. It was about creating a ethical society based on the shared principle of rational discourse, rather than unquestioning acceptance.

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