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This recent season, I was caught in congested 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 famous spot for fish soup. Yet, the digital guide on my phone commanded us to go forward. Fatigued and in a stifling car, I heeded the app's advice. Moments later, we were stranded at a construction site.

A minor incident, perhaps. But one that encapsulates a defining dilemma of our time, where technology permeates almost every aspect of our lives: whom do we trust to a greater degree – other people and our personal instincts, or the machine?

The Enlightenment's Promise and Our Modern Relapse

The renowned German philosopher Immanuel Kant famously described the Enlightenment as "man's release from its self-inflicted immaturity." This state, he argued, "represents the inability to use one's own understanding without direction from another." For ages, that directing force for human thought was often the priest, the king, or the feudal lord – entities claiming to speak for God's voice. To explain natural events like changing seasons, people sought answers in religion. In shaping the social world, from commerce to matters of the heart, faith served as the primary guide.

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

Kant argued that humans always possessed the capacity for reason. They just didn't have the boldness to use it. With upheavals in the 18th century, a new dawn arrived: logic would replace blind faith, and the human mind, liberated from authority, would become the engine of progress and a more ethical world.

Today, 250 years later, one might question if we are quietly regressing into a state of dependency. An app suggesting a direction is just one example. AI risks becoming our contemporary authority – a silent guide that influences our decisions and behaviors. We are in danger of relinquishing the historically earned autonomy to think independently – and this time, not to gods or kings, but to lines of code.

The Rapid Rise and Subtle Dangers of Algorithmic Reliance

ChatGPT debuted a mere three years ago, and already a recent study found that an vast number of people had engaged with artificial intelligence in the previous six months. Whether deciding on ending a relationship or choosing a candidate, individuals are looking to machines for counsel. Data suggests a large majority of user prompts concern non-work topics. Even more striking than our use of AI for judgment is what occurs when we allow it express for us. Composition is now among the top uses for tools like ChatGPT, just behind practical requests. The celebrated American author Joan Didion once remarked, “I write entirely to find out what I am thinking.” What transpires when we stop composing? Do we lose that path?

Worryingly, some evidence suggests the answer may be affirmative. 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 no aids. Those who could use AI showed the least brain activity and had difficulty accurately recalling their own work. Maybe most troubling was that over time, participants in the AI group grew increasingly reliant, copying entire blocks of text.

“Laziness and cowardice,” Kant wrote, “are the reasons why so great a proportion of men … remain in lifelong immaturity.”

Certainly, AI's appeal lies in its efficiency. It saves time, minimizes work and – importantly – offers a novel way to offload accountability. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm argued that the appeal of authoritarianism could be understood by a human tendency to surrender autonomy in for the sake of the reassuring certainty of subordination. AI offers a digital method of surrendering the weight of having to think and choose.

The Black Box Problem: Trust Without Understanding

AI's greatest allure is its ability to perform tasks outside our minds – analyzing vast datasets at unprecedented speed. Sitting 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 access to real-time information, surely the app must know best – or so I thought.

The core issue is that AI operates as a black box. It produces answers, but without necessarily fostering human understanding. We do not truly know the process behind its conclusions – even its programmers acknowledge the opacity. Nor can we check its logic against transparent standards. So when we follow AI's advice, we are not being guided by reason. We are returning to the realm of faith. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, side with the machine – that could be our future guiding principle.

Harnessing Without Eroding: The Critical Balance

AI can be a powerful tool for mankind in rational inquiry. It can aid in inventing drugs, free us from tedious tasks, or handle taxes – duties that demand little thought 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 merely about productivity – it was a practice of freedom and human emancipation.

Human thought is often chaotic and error-prone, but it forces us to argue, 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 use of reason was never solely about acquiring knowledge; it was about enabling people to become authors of their own lives, and to oppose control. It was about creating a ethical society grounded in the shared principle of reason and debate, rather than blind belief.

With all the advantages AI offers, the key question remains: how can we harness its promise of advanced capability without undermining human reasoning, the bedrock of the Enlightenment and of free societies themselves? That may be one of the central dilemmas of our century. It is a question we would do well not to delegate to the algorithm.