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This recent season, I found myself navigating in congested traffic on the sweltering streets of a southern French city. At an intersection, my companion in the front seat suggested a right turn toward a famous spot for bouillabaisse. However, the navigation app on my phone commanded us to continue straight. Weary and overheated, I heeded the app's directive. Moments later, we were stranded at a construction site.

A seemingly trivial event, perhaps. But one that captures a central question of our era, where technology touches almost every aspect of our lives: whom do we trust to a greater degree – fellow humans and our personal instincts, or the algorithm?

A Call for Intellectual Maturity and Our Modern Relapse

The influential German philosopher Immanuel Kant once defined the Enlightenment as "man's release from its self-imposed nonage." This immaturity, he wrote, "represents the inability to use one's personal reason without direction from another." For centuries, that directing force for human thought was frequently the clergyman, the monarch, or the landowner – entities purporting to speak for divine will. To comprehend phenomena like changing seasons, people sought answers in theology. In organizing the social world, from commerce to love, religious doctrine acted as the primary guide.

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

Kant argued that humans had the capacity for reason. They simply lacked the confidence to employ it. With revolutions in the 18th century, a new dawn arrived: logic would replace superstition, and the human mind, liberated from dogma, would become the engine of progress and a more ethical world.

Now, two and a half centuries later, one might question if we are quietly regressing into a form of intellectual immaturity. An app dictating a direction is just one example. Artificial intelligence threatens to become our contemporary authority – a unseen overseer that influences our choices and behaviors. We risk ceding the hard-won autonomy to think independently – and now, not to deities or rulers, but to lines of code.

The Rapid Rise and Hidden Risks of AI Dependence

ChatGPT was launched only in 2022, and yet a global survey indicated that an overwhelming majority of people had used AI in the preceding half-year. Whether deciding on a breakup or choosing a candidate, individuals are increasingly turning to machines for guidance. Data suggests a large majority of user queries concern non-work topics. Even more intriguing than our reliance on AI for judgment is what happens when we allow it express for us. Composition is now among the top uses for tools like ChatGPT, just behind everyday tasks. The celebrated American author Joan Didion once remarked, “I write purely to find out what I am thinking.” What occurs when we cease writing? Do we lose that path?

Worryingly, emerging research hints the answer may be yes. A study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used electroencephalography to track the cognitive activity of essay writers who had access to AI, Google, or no aids. Those who could use AI displayed the lowest cognitive engagement and had trouble quoting their own work. Perhaps most concerning was that over time, individuals in the AI group grew progressively lazier, copying large sections of text.

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

Of course, AI's attraction stems from its convenience. It is fast, minimizes work and – critically – 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 partly explained by a human tendency to give up autonomy in exchange for the comforting security of subordination. AI presents a modern avenue for relinquishing the burden of having to think and choose.

The Black Box Problem: Faith Over Reason

AI's primary draw is its capacity to accomplish things beyond our minds – sifting through oceans of data at lightning pace. Stuck in the car in Marseille, this was, ultimately, why I opted to trust the machine over my friend (a choice she interpreted as an insult). With access to all the data, certainly the app had superior insight – or so I believed.

The fundamental problem is that AI operates as a black box. It produces knowledge, but without necessarily deepening human understanding. We cannot fully grasp the process behind its conclusions – even its creators acknowledge the opacity. Nor can we verify its logic against clear, objective criteria. So when we heed AI's advice, 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 future guiding principle.

Using Without Losing: The Critical Balance

AI can be a formidable ally for mankind in scientific pursuit. It can aid in medical research, liberate us from tedious tasks, or manage taxes – work that demand little thought and offer little satisfaction. This is beneficial. But Kant and his peers did not advocate for reason over faith just so humans could optimize chores or have extra free time. Critical thinking was not merely about efficiency – it was a discipline of liberty and human emancipation.

Human thought is often chaotic and fallible, but it forces us to debate, to doubt, to challenge concepts – and to recognize the boundaries of our own understanding. It fosters self-reliance, both individually 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 resist control. It was about building a moral community grounded in the shared principle of rational discourse, rather than blind belief.

With all the advantages AI offers, the key question remains: how can we leverage its promise of superhuman intelligence without eroding human rationality, the cornerstone of the Enlightenment and of liberal democracy themselves? That is likely one of the defining questions of our century. It is a question we would do well not to delegate to the algorithm.