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This past summer, I found myself navigating in congested traffic on the scorching streets of Marseille. At an intersection, my friend in the front seat advised a right turn toward a renowned spot for bouillabaisse. However, the digital guide on my phone commanded us to go forward. Fatigued and overheated, I followed the algorithm's directive. Moments later, we were stuck at a roadwork site.

A minor incident, perhaps. But one that captures a defining dilemma of our era, where digital tools permeates nearly every facet of our lives: who gets our trust more – fellow humans and our personal instincts, or the algorithm?

A Call for Intellectual Maturity and A Contemporary Backslide

The renowned German philosopher Immanuel Kant once defined the Enlightenment as "man's release from its self-imposed nonage." This state, he argued, "is the incapacity to use one's personal reason without guidance from another." For ages, that directing force for society was often the clergyman, the monarch, or the landowner – entities claiming to speak for God's voice. To explain phenomena like volcanic eruptions, people looked for explanations in theology. In shaping the social world, from commerce to matters of the heart, faith served as the main compass.

“Sapere aude!” or “Have courage to use your own understanding!”

Kant argued that humans had the ability to think rationally. They simply lacked the confidence to employ it. With upheavals in the 18th century, a new dawn arrived: logic would supplant blind faith, and the intellect, liberated from authority, would become the engine of advancement and a more ethical world.

Today, two and a half centuries later, one might question if we are quietly regressing into a state of dependency. An app suggesting a driving route is merely the start. AI risks becoming our contemporary authority – a unseen overseer that steers our choices and actions. We are in danger of ceding the hard-won courage to reason for ourselves – and now, not to deities or rulers, but to lines of code.

The Rapid Rise and Subtle Dangers of AI Dependence

ChatGPT debuted only in 2022, and already a global survey found that an vast number of respondents had used AI in the preceding half-year. Whether deciding on ending a relationship or choosing a candidate, individuals are looking to algorithms for counsel. Data suggests a significant portion of user queries concern personal life matters. Even more intriguing than our reliance on AI for judgment is what occurs when we let it speak for us. Writing is now among the most common uses for tools like ChatGPT, just behind everyday tasks. The late American author Joan Didion once remarked, “I write entirely to discover what I am thinking.” What transpires when we cease writing? Do we lose that path?

Alarmingly, emerging research hints the answer may be yes. A study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used brain monitoring to observe the cognitive activity of participants who had access to AI, Google, or nothing. Those who could rely on AI showed the least brain activity and had trouble accurately recalling their own work. Perhaps most troubling was that over time, individuals 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 … stay in perpetual nonage.”

Certainly, AI's appeal stems from its efficiency. It is fast, reduces effort and – importantly – offers a new method to offload responsibility. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm argued 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 surrendering the burden of having to decide for oneself.

The Black Box Problem: Faith Over Reason

AI's primary draw is its ability to perform tasks beyond our minds – sifting through oceans of data at lightning pace. Sitting in the car in Marseille, this was, ultimately, why I opted to believe the machine over my friend (a decision she interpreted as an insult). With knowledge of real-time information, certainly the app had superior insight – or so I believed.

The fundamental problem is that AI is a black box. It produces answers, but without necessarily deepening human comprehension. We do not truly know how AI reaches its decisions – including its programmers admit this. Nor can we verify its reasoning against clear, objective criteria. So when we follow AI's advice, we are not being guided by reason. We are returning to the domain of faith. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, side with the machine – that may become our future guiding principle.

Harnessing Without Eroding: The Essential Challenge

AI can be a formidable ally for humanity in scientific pursuit. It can help medical research, free us from tedious tasks, or manage administrative chores – work that are repetitive and offer little satisfaction. All to the good. But Kant and his contemporaries did not champion enlightenment just so humans could optimize chores or have extra free time. Critical thinking was not just about efficiency – it was a practice of liberty and human emancipation.

Human thought is inherently messy and fallible, but it compels us to argue, to doubt, to challenge concepts – and to acknowledge the boundaries of our own knowledge. It fosters confidence, 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 agents of their own destinies, and to resist domination. It was about building a ethical society grounded in the shared principle of reason and debate, rather than unquestioning acceptance.

With all the advantages AI brings, the paramount challenge is this: how can we harness its promise of advanced capability without undermining human rationality, the cornerstone of the Enlightenment and of liberal democracy itself? That is likely one of the central dilemmas of our century. It is a question we must strive not to delegate to the machine.