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This recent season, I was caught in congested traffic on the scorching streets of Marseille. At an intersection, my friend in the front seat advised a right turn toward a famous spot for fish soup. Yet, the navigation app on my phone commanded us to continue straight. Weary and in a stifling car, I followed the app's directive. Minutes later, we were stuck at a roadwork site.

A seemingly trivial event, perhaps. But one that captures a central question of our time, where digital tools touches 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 A Contemporary Backslide

The influential German philosopher Immanuel Kant famously described the Enlightenment as "humanity's emergence from its self-imposed immaturity." This immaturity, he wrote, "represents the incapacity to use one's own understanding without direction from another." For ages, that guiding "other" for society was frequently the priest, the king, or the feudal lord – figures purporting to speak for divine will. To explain natural events like volcanic eruptions, people sought answers in theology. In organizing the social world, from commerce to matters of the heart, religious doctrine served as the primary guide.

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

Kant argued that humans always possessed the ability to think rationally. They simply lacked the confidence to employ it. With revolutions in America and France, a new dawn arrived: reason would supplant blind faith, and the human mind, freed from dogma, would become the driver of advancement and a more ethical world.

Now, two and a half centuries later, one might wonder if we are slipping back into a form of intellectual immaturity. An app dictating a driving route is merely the start. AI risks becoming our contemporary authority – a silent overseer that influences our choices and behaviors. We are in danger of relinquishing the hard-won autonomy to think independently – and now, not to gods or kings, but to lines of code.

The Rapid Rise and Subtle Dangers of Algorithmic Reliance

ChatGPT debuted only in 2022, and already a global survey indicated that an overwhelming majority of people had used AI in the preceding half-year. Whether contemplating a breakup or selecting a vote, individuals are increasingly turning to machines for guidance. Research suggests a significant portion of user prompts concern personal life matters. Even more striking than our reliance on AI for judgment is what occurs when we let it express for us. Writing is now one of the most common uses for tools like ChatGPT, just behind practical requests. The late American author Joan Didion famously said, “I write purely to discover what I am thinking.” What transpires when we stop composing? Do we cease discovering?

Alarmingly, emerging research suggests the outcome may be affirmative. A study conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used brain monitoring to observe the cognitive activity of essay writers who had could use AI, Google, or no aids. Those who could rely on AI displayed the lowest cognitive engagement and had trouble quoting their own work. Maybe most concerning was that after a few months, participants in the AI group became 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.”

Of course, AI's appeal lies in its efficiency. It saves time, minimizes work and – critically – offers a novel way to abdicate accountability. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm proposed that the rise of fascism could be partly explained by a preference to give up personal freedom in exchange for the reassuring certainty of obedience. AI offers a modern avenue for relinquishing the weight of having to think and choose.

The Opacity Dilemma: Faith Over Reason

AI's greatest allure is its capacity to perform tasks outside our minds – sifting through oceans of data at lightning pace. Stuck in the car in Marseille, this was, after all, why I opted to trust the machine over my friend (a choice she took as an affront). With access to real-time information, certainly the app must know best – or so I believed.

The fundamental problem is that AI is a opaque system. It produces knowledge, but not always deepening human understanding. We do not truly know how AI reaches its decisions – including its programmers admit this. Nor can we verify its logic against transparent standards. So when we heed AI's recommendation, we are not being led by logic. We are back in the domain of faith. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, trust the machine – that may become our 21st-century 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 "bullshit jobs", or manage taxes – duties that demand little thought and offer little satisfaction. This is beneficial. But Kant and his peers did not champion enlightenment just so humans could optimize chores or have extra free time. 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 forces us to debate, to question, to challenge concepts – and to recognize the limits of our own knowledge. It builds confidence, both individually and collectively. For Kant, the use of reason was never only about acquiring knowledge; it was about empowering people to become agents of their own lives, and to resist domination. It was about building a ethical society grounded in the common foundation of rational discourse, rather than blind belief.

With all the advantages AI brings, the paramount challenge is this: how can we leverage its promise of superhuman intelligence without eroding human rationality, the cornerstone of the Enlightenment and of free societies themselves? That is likely one of the defining questions of our century. It is a question we would do well not to outsource to the algorithm.