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This past summer, I found myself navigating in gridlocked traffic on the scorching streets of Marseille. At a crossing, my companion in the passenger seat suggested a right turn toward a famous spot for bouillabaisse. However, the navigation app on my phone commanded us to go forward. Weary and overheated, I followed the app's advice. Moments later, we were stranded at a roadwork site.

A seemingly trivial incident, maybe. But one that captures a defining question of our era, where digital tools permeates nearly every facet of our lives: who gets our trust to a greater degree – other people and our own intuition, or the algorithm?

The Enlightenment's Promise and Our Modern Relapse

The influential German philosopher Immanuel Kant once defined the Enlightenment as "humanity's emergence from its self-inflicted immaturity." This state, he wrote, "represents the inability to use one's own understanding without direction from another." For centuries, that guiding "other" for human thought was frequently the clergyman, the monarch, or the landowner – entities purporting to channel God's voice. To comprehend natural events like changing seasons, people sought answers in theology. In shaping the fabric of society, from commerce to matters of the heart, faith acted as the primary guide.

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

Kant argued that humans always possessed the capacity for reason. They just didn't have the boldness to employ it. With revolutions in America and France, a fresh era emerged: logic would supplant blind faith, and the human mind, freed from dogma, would become the engine of advancement and a better world.

Today, two and a half centuries later, one might question if we are slipping back into a form of dependency. An app dictating a driving route is just one example. Artificial intelligence threatens to become our contemporary authority – a unseen guide that steers our decisions and actions. We are in danger of relinquishing the historically earned autonomy to think independently – and this time, not to gods or kings, but to computer programs.

The Rapid Rise and Hidden Risks of AI Dependence

ChatGPT was launched only in 2022, and already a recent study indicated that an overwhelming majority of people had used AI in the previous six months. Whether contemplating ending a relationship or selecting a vote, individuals are increasingly turning to machines for counsel. Research suggests a significant portion of user prompts concern personal life matters. Even more striking than our reliance on AI for judgment is what happens when we let it speak for us. Writing is now among the most common 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 transpires when we cease writing? Do we cease discovering?

Worryingly, emerging research hints the answer may be affirmative. A study conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used electroencephalography to observe the mental engagement of participants who had access to AI, Google, or no aids. Those who could rely on AI showed the least brain activity 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 entire blocks of text.

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

Certainly, AI's appeal stems from its convenience. It saves time, minimizes work and – critically – offers a new method to abdicate accountability. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm argued that the rise of fascism could be understood by a human tendency to surrender autonomy in exchange for the comforting security of subordination. AI presents a digital method of relinquishing the burden of having to think and choose.

The Opacity Dilemma: Faith Over Reason

AI's greatest allure is its ability to perform tasks outside our minds – analyzing vast datasets at unprecedented speed. Sitting in the car in Marseille, this was, after all, why I opted to trust the app over my companion (a decision she took as an affront). With access to real-time information, certainly the app had superior insight – or so I thought.

The core issue is that AI is a opaque system. It generates answers, but not always fostering human comprehension. We do not truly know how AI reaches its decisions – even its creators acknowledge the opacity. Nor can we check its reasoning against clear, objective criteria. So when we follow AI's advice, we are not being guided by reason. We are back in the domain of faith. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, side with the machine – that may become our 21st-century guiding principle.

Using Without Losing: The Critical Balance

AI can be a formidable ally for humanity in scientific pursuit. It can help inventing drugs, free us from "bullshit jobs", or handle administrative chores – duties that demand little thought and offer little satisfaction. All to the good. But Kant and his contemporaries did not champion reason over faith just so humans could optimize chores or have extra free time. Critical thinking was not merely about productivity – it was a discipline of liberty and human self-determination.

Human thought is inherently messy and error-prone, but it compels us to debate, to question, to test ideas – and to acknowledge the boundaries of our own knowledge. It fosters self-reliance, both personally and collectively. For Kant, the exercise of reason was never solely about information; it was about empowering people to become agents of their own lives, and to resist domination. It was about creating a moral community grounded in the common foundation of reason and debate, rather than blind belief.

With all the advantages AI offers, the paramount challenge is this: how can we leverage its potential of advanced capability without undermining 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 delegate to the algorithm.