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This recent season, I found myself navigating in gridlocked traffic on the sweltering streets of a southern French city. At an intersection, my companion in the passenger seat suggested a right turn toward a renowned spot for fish soup. However, the navigation app on my phone instructed us to continue straight. Fatigued and in a stifling car, I heeded the app's advice. Moments later, we were stuck at a roadwork site.

A minor event, maybe. But one that encapsulates a central dilemma of our time, where technology permeates nearly every facet of existence: who gets our trust to a greater degree – fellow humans and our own intuition, 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 state, he argued, "is the incapacity to use one's personal reason without direction from an external source." For ages, that directing force for society was often the clergyman, the monarch, or the landowner – entities purporting to channel God's voice. To explain natural events like changing seasons, people looked for explanations in religion. In shaping the social world, from economics to matters of the heart, faith acted as the primary guide.

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

Kant maintained that humans always possessed the ability to think rationally. They simply lacked the confidence to employ it. With upheavals in America and France, a new dawn arrived: logic would replace blind faith, and the intellect, liberated from dogma, would become the driver of advancement and a more ethical world.

Now, 250 years later, one might question if we are slipping back into a form of intellectual immaturity. An app dictating a direction is merely the start. Artificial intelligence threatens to become our new "other" – a unseen overseer that influences our choices and actions. We risk relinquishing the hard-won autonomy to reason for ourselves – and this time, not to deities or rulers, but to lines of code.

The Swift Adoption and Subtle Dangers of AI Dependence

ChatGPT debuted only in 2022, and yet a recent study found that an vast number of people had engaged with artificial intelligence in the preceding half-year. Whether deciding on ending a relationship or selecting a vote, individuals are increasingly turning to machines for counsel. Data suggests a significant portion of user prompts relate to personal life matters. Even more striking than our reliance on AI for advice is what occurs when we let it speak for us. Composition is now one of the most common uses for tools like ChatGPT, just behind everyday tasks. The late American author Joan Didion once remarked, “I write purely to discover what I am thinking.” What occurs when we stop composing? Do we lose that path?

Alarmingly, emerging research suggests the answer may be yes. A study conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used electroencephalography to observe the mental engagement of essay writers who had access to AI, traditional search engines, or no aids. Those who could use AI displayed the least brain activity and had trouble quoting their own work. Perhaps most concerning was that after a few months, 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 … remain in lifelong immaturity.”

Of course, AI's attraction lies in its efficiency. 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 understood by a human tendency to give up personal freedom in for the sake of the reassuring certainty of subordination. AI presents a modern avenue for relinquishing the weight of having to decide for oneself.

The Black Box Problem: Trust Without Understanding

AI's primary draw is its capacity to accomplish things outside human capability – analyzing vast datasets at lightning pace. Sitting in the car in Marseille, this was, ultimately, why I opted to believe the app over my friend (a decision she took as an affront). With knowledge of real-time information, certainly the app must know best – or so I believed.

The fundamental problem is that AI operates as a black box. It produces knowledge, but not always deepening human understanding. We do not truly know how AI reaches its decisions – even its creators acknowledge the opacity. Nor can we verify its reasoning against clear, objective criteria. So when we follow AI's advice, we are not being led by logic. We are back in the domain of belief. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, trust 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 help medical research, free us from tedious tasks, or manage administrative chores – duties 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 more leisure. Independent thought was not merely about efficiency – it was a practice of freedom and human self-determination.

Human thought is often chaotic and fallible, but it compels us to debate, to doubt, to challenge concepts – and to acknowledge the limits of our own understanding. 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 authors of their own lives, and to oppose control. It was about building a moral community based on the shared principle of rational discourse, rather than blind belief.

With all the advantages AI offers, the paramount challenge is this: how can we leverage its potential of superhuman intelligence without eroding human reasoning, the cornerstone of the Enlightenment and of liberal democracy itself? That may be one of the central dilemmas of our century. It is a question we would do well not to outsource to the algorithm.