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This recent season, I was caught in congested traffic on the scorching streets of Marseille. At an intersection, my companion in the passenger seat advised a right turn toward a renowned spot for fish soup. However, the navigation app on my phone instructed us to go forward. Weary and overheated, I heeded the algorithm's directive. Moments later, we were stuck at a roadwork site.

A minor incident, maybe. But one that encapsulates a central dilemma of our era, where digital tools touches nearly every facet of existence: whom do we trust more – fellow humans and our personal instincts, or the machine?

A Call for Intellectual Maturity 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 wrote, "is the incapacity to use one's personal reason without guidance from another." For ages, that directing force for human thought was frequently the clergyman, the monarch, or the landowner – figures purporting to channel divine will. To comprehend natural events like changing seasons, people sought answers in religion. In shaping the fabric of society, from commerce to love, religious doctrine served as the primary guide.

“Sapere aude!” or “Dare to use your reason!”

Kant maintained 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 emerged: logic would supplant blind faith, and the intellect, freed from authority, would become the engine of advancement and a better world.

Today, two and a half centuries later, one might wonder if we are quietly regressing into a state of intellectual immaturity. An app dictating a direction is merely the start. Artificial intelligence threatens to become our new "other" – a silent guide that steers our decisions and behaviors. We are in danger of ceding the hard-won courage to think independently – and this time, not to gods or kings, but to computer programs.

The Swift Adoption and Subtle Dangers of Algorithmic Reliance

ChatGPT was launched a mere three years ago, and already a recent study found that an vast number of people had used AI in the previous six months. Whether contemplating a breakup or selecting a vote, individuals are increasingly turning to machines for guidance. Research suggests a large majority of user queries relate to non-work topics. Even more striking than our reliance on AI for advice is what happens when we allow it express for us. Writing is now among the top uses for tools like ChatGPT, just behind practical requests. The late American author Joan Didion famously said, “I write entirely to discover what I am thinking.” What transpires when we cease writing? Do we lose that path?

Worryingly, some evidence suggests the outcome may be affirmative. A study conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used electroencephalography to track the cognitive activity of participants who had access to AI, traditional search engines, or nothing. Those who could use AI displayed the lowest cognitive engagement and had difficulty quoting their own work. Maybe most troubling was that over time, individuals in the AI group became progressively lazier, copying entire blocks of text.

“Inertia and fear,” Kant wrote, “are the reasons why so many of men … stay in perpetual nonage.”

Of course, AI's attraction lies in its convenience. It saves time, minimizes work and – importantly – offers a novel way to offload 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 for the sake of the comforting security of obedience. AI offers a modern avenue for surrendering the burden of having to think and choose.

The Black Box Problem: Faith Over Reason

AI's primary draw is its capacity to accomplish things beyond human capability – sifting through oceans of data at lightning pace. Sitting in the car in Marseille, this was, after all, why I chose to believe the app over my friend (a choice she took as an insult). With access to all the data, surely the algorithm must know best – or so I believed.

The core issue is that AI operates as a black box. It generates knowledge, but without necessarily deepening human understanding. We do not truly know how AI reaches its decisions – including its programmers acknowledge the opacity. Nor can we verify its reasoning against clear, objective criteria. So when we follow AI's recommendation, we are not being guided by reason. We are returning to the domain of faith. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, trust the machine – that could be our future guiding principle.

Harnessing Without Eroding: The Critical Balance

AI can be a powerful tool for mankind in rational inquiry. It can aid in inventing drugs, liberate us from tedious tasks, or manage administrative chores – duties that demand little thought and offer little satisfaction. All to the good. But Kant and his contemporaries did not champion enlightenment just so humans could assemble better furniture or have more leisure. Independent thought was not just about productivity – it was a discipline of freedom and human self-determination.

Human thought is often chaotic and fallible, but it forces us to argue, to doubt, to test ideas – and to acknowledge the boundaries of our own knowledge. It builds confidence, both personally and collectively. For Kant, the exercise of reason was never solely about acquiring knowledge; it was about empowering people to become authors of their own destinies, and to oppose domination. It was about creating a ethical society based on the common foundation of rational discourse, rather than blind belief.

With all the advantages AI brings, the key question is this: how can we harness its promise of advanced capability without eroding human rationality, the cornerstone of the Enlightenment and of free societies itself? That may be one of the defining questions of our time. It is a question we must strive not to delegate to the algorithm.