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This recent season, I found myself navigating in congested traffic on the scorching streets of Marseille. At a crossing, my companion in the front seat advised a right turn toward a renowned spot for bouillabaisse. Yet, the navigation app on my phone instructed us to continue straight. Weary and overheated, I followed the app's advice. Minutes later, we were stranded at a construction site.

A minor event, perhaps. But one that captures a defining dilemma of our era, where digital tools touches nearly every facet of our lives: who gets our trust more – other people and our personal instincts, or the machine?

A Call for Intellectual Maturity and A Contemporary Backslide

The renowned German philosopher Immanuel Kant once defined the Enlightenment as "humanity's emergence from its self-imposed nonage." This immaturity, he wrote, "represents the incapacity to use one's personal reason without direction from an external source." For ages, that guiding "other" for human thought was frequently the priest, the monarch, or the feudal lord – figures claiming to channel divine will. To comprehend phenomena like volcanic eruptions, people sought answers in religion. In organizing the social world, from commerce to love, religious doctrine acted as the main compass.

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

Kant maintained that humans had the ability to think rationally. They just didn't have the boldness to use it. With revolutions in America and France, a fresh era arrived: reason would supplant blind faith, and the human mind, freed from authority, would become the driver of progress and a better world.

Today, two and a half centuries later, one might wonder if we are slipping back into a state of dependency. An app suggesting a direction is just one example. AI threatens to become our new "other" – a unseen overseer that steers our decisions and actions. We risk ceding the hard-won autonomy to think independently – and this time, not to gods or kings, but to computer programs.

The Swift Adoption and Hidden Risks of Algorithmic Reliance

ChatGPT debuted only in 2022, and already a global survey found that an overwhelming majority of people had engaged with artificial intelligence in the previous six months. Whether contemplating a breakup or selecting a vote, individuals are increasingly turning to algorithms for counsel. Data suggests a significant portion of user queries relate to non-work topics. Even more intriguing than our use of AI for advice is what occurs when we allow it express for us. Composition is now one of the most common uses for tools like ChatGPT, second only to practical requests. The celebrated American author Joan Didion once remarked, “I write purely to discover what I am thinking.” What occurs when we stop composing? Do we cease discovering?

Worryingly, emerging research hints the answer may be yes. A study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used brain monitoring to track the cognitive activity of participants who had could use AI, Google, or nothing. Those who could rely on AI displayed the least cognitive engagement and had difficulty accurately recalling their own work. Maybe most troubling was that after a few months, individuals in the AI group grew progressively lazier, pasting large sections of text.

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

Of course, AI's appeal stems from its efficiency. It is fast, reduces effort and – importantly – offers a novel way to abdicate accountability. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm argued that the rise of fascism could be partly explained by a human tendency to surrender personal freedom in exchange for the comforting security of subordination. AI presents a digital method of relinquishing the weight of having to decide for oneself.

The Opacity Dilemma: Trust Without Understanding

AI's greatest allure is its ability to accomplish things outside human capability – analyzing oceans of data at lightning pace. Stuck in the car in Marseille, this was, ultimately, why I chose to trust the app over my friend (a choice she took as an affront). With access to real-time information, surely the algorithm had superior insight – or so I believed.

The fundamental problem is that AI operates as a opaque system. It generates knowledge, but without necessarily fostering human comprehension. We do not truly know the process behind its conclusions – even its creators admit this. Nor can we check its logic against transparent standards. So when we heed AI's advice, we are not being guided by reason. We are returning to the domain of belief. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, side with the machine – that could be our future credo.

Harnessing Without Eroding: The Essential Challenge

AI can be a formidable ally for mankind in scientific pursuit. It can aid in medical research, liberate us from "bullshit jobs", or handle administrative chores – work that demand little thought and offer little satisfaction. This is beneficial. But Kant and his contemporaries did not champion reason over faith just so humans could assemble better furniture or have more leisure. Independent thought was not merely about efficiency – it was a practice of liberty and human self-determination.

Human thought is often chaotic and fallible, but it compels us to argue, to question, to challenge concepts – and to recognize the limits of our own understanding. It builds self-reliance, both individually and as a society. For Kant, the use of reason was never solely about acquiring knowledge; it was about empowering people to become authors of their own lives, and to resist domination. It was about building a moral community based on the common foundation of reason and debate, rather than unquestioning acceptance.

With all the advantages AI offers, the key question remains: how can we leverage its promise of advanced capability without undermining human reasoning, the cornerstone of the Enlightenment and of liberal democracy itself? That may be one of the defining questions of our time. It is a question we would do well not to outsource to the algorithm.