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This past summer, I found myself navigating in gridlocked traffic on the scorching streets of a southern French city. At an intersection, my friend in the passenger seat advised a right turn toward a renowned spot for bouillabaisse. Yet, the digital guide on my phone instructed us to go forward. Weary and overheated, I followed the app's advice. Minutes later, we were stuck at a roadwork site.

A minor event, maybe. But one that encapsulates a defining dilemma of our time, where digital tools permeates almost every aspect of our lives: who gets our trust more – fellow humans and our personal instincts, or the machine?

A Call for Intellectual Maturity and A Contemporary Backslide

The renowned German philosopher Immanuel Kant famously described the Enlightenment as "humanity's emergence from its self-imposed nonage." This immaturity, he wrote, "represents the inability to use one's personal reason without direction from another." For ages, that directing force for human thought was frequently the priest, the king, or the landowner – entities claiming to speak for God's voice. To comprehend phenomena like changing seasons, people sought answers in religion. In shaping the social world, from economics to matters of the heart, faith served as the main compass.

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

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 fresh era emerged: reason would supplant blind faith, and the intellect, freed from authority, would become the engine of advancement and a better world.

Now, two and a half centuries later, one might wonder if we are quietly regressing into a state of dependency. An app dictating a driving route is merely the start. AI risks becoming our contemporary authority – a unseen guide that influences our decisions and actions. We are in danger of ceding the historically earned courage to reason for ourselves – and this time, not to deities or rulers, but to computer programs.

The Rapid Rise and Subtle Dangers of Algorithmic Reliance

ChatGPT was launched a mere three years ago, and already a global survey found that an vast number of respondents had engaged with artificial intelligence in the preceding half-year. Whether contemplating a breakup or choosing a candidate, individuals are increasingly turning to machines for guidance. Research suggests a large majority of user prompts relate to personal life matters. Even more intriguing than our reliance on AI for judgment is what occurs when we allow it speak for us. Composition is now among the top uses for tools like ChatGPT, just behind practical requests. The celebrated American author Joan Didion famously said, “I write purely to find out what I am thinking.” What occurs when we cease writing? Do we cease discovering?

Worryingly, some evidence suggests the outcome may be yes. A study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used brain monitoring to track the cognitive activity of participants who had access to AI, traditional search engines, or nothing. Those who could use AI displayed the least cognitive engagement and had trouble accurately recalling their own work. Maybe most concerning was that after a few months, individuals in the AI group grew increasingly reliant, copying large sections of text.

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

Of course, AI's attraction stems from its efficiency. It is fast, reduces effort and – critically – offers a novel way to offload 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 give up personal freedom in for the sake of the reassuring certainty of obedience. AI presents a digital avenue for relinquishing the weight of having to decide for oneself.

The Opacity Dilemma: Trust Without Understanding

AI's greatest allure is its ability to perform tasks outside human capability – analyzing vast datasets at unprecedented speed. Sitting in the car in Marseille, this was, ultimately, why I opted to trust the app over my companion (a choice she interpreted as an insult). With knowledge of all the data, surely the algorithm must know best – or so I believed.

The fundamental problem is that AI operates as a black box. It produces answers, but without necessarily deepening human understanding. We do not truly know the process behind its decisions – even its programmers admit this. Nor can we check its logic against clear, objective criteria. So when we heed AI's advice, we are not being led by logic. We are returning to the domain of belief. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, side with the machine – that could be our 21st-century guiding principle.

Using Without Losing: The Critical Balance

AI can be a powerful tool for mankind in scientific pursuit. It can help inventing drugs, free us from tedious tasks, or handle administrative chores – duties that demand little thought and are unfulfilling. This is beneficial. But Kant and his peers did not advocate for 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 emancipation.

Human thought is inherently messy and fallible, but it compels us to argue, to doubt, to challenge concepts – and to recognize the boundaries of our own understanding. It builds confidence, both personally and collectively. 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 creating a moral community based on the common foundation of reason and debate, rather than unquestioning acceptance.

With all the undeniable benefits AI offers, the key question remains: how can we leverage its promise of advanced capability without eroding human rationality, the bedrock of the Enlightenment and of free societies itself? That is likely one of the central dilemmas of our time. It is a question we would do well not to delegate to the machine.