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This recent season, 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 renowned spot for fish soup. However, the digital guide on my phone instructed us to continue straight. Fatigued and in a stifling car, I heeded the algorithm's advice. Moments later, we were stranded at a construction site.

A seemingly trivial event, perhaps. But one that captures a central dilemma of our era, where technology permeates nearly every facet of existence: who gets our trust to a greater degree – 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-inflicted immaturity." This state, he argued, "represents the incapacity to use one's own understanding without direction from another." For ages, that directing force for society was frequently the priest, the monarch, or the landowner – entities claiming to speak for God's voice. To explain natural events like changing seasons, people sought answers in theology. In organizing the social world, from economics to love, faith acted as the primary guide.

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

Kant maintained that humans had the ability to think rationally. They just didn't have the boldness to use it. With upheavals in the 18th century, a new dawn emerged: reason would supplant blind faith, and the human mind, liberated from dogma, would become the driver of progress and a better world.

Today, two and a half centuries later, one might question if we are slipping back into a form of intellectual immaturity. An app suggesting a driving route is merely the start. Artificial intelligence threatens to become our contemporary authority – a unseen overseer that steers our decisions and behaviors. We risk ceding the historically earned autonomy to reason for ourselves – and this time, not to gods or kings, but to lines of code.

The Swift Adoption and Hidden Risks of AI Dependence

ChatGPT debuted a mere three years ago, and yet a recent study found that an vast number of people had engaged with artificial intelligence in the previous six months. Whether deciding on a breakup or choosing a candidate, individuals are looking to algorithms for counsel. Research suggests a significant portion of user prompts concern personal life matters. Even more intriguing than our use of AI for advice is what occurs when we allow it express for us. Composition is now one of the top uses for tools like ChatGPT, second only to everyday tasks. The celebrated American author Joan Didion famously said, “I write entirely to find out what I am thinking.” What transpires when we stop composing? Do we cease discovering?

Alarmingly, some evidence suggests the answer may be yes. A study conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used brain monitoring to observe the cognitive activity of essay writers who had access to AI, Google, or no aids. Those who could use AI displayed the lowest cognitive engagement and had difficulty quoting their own work. Maybe most concerning was that over time, individuals in the AI group grew progressively lazier, pasting 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 appeal lies in its efficiency. It is fast, minimizes work and – critically – offers a novel way to offload responsibility. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm proposed that the appeal of authoritarianism could be partly explained by a preference to give up personal freedom in exchange for the comforting security of obedience. AI presents a modern avenue for surrendering the weight of having to think and choose.

The Opacity Dilemma: Trust Without Understanding

AI's primary draw is its ability to perform tasks beyond human capability – sifting through vast datasets at unprecedented speed. Stuck in the car in Marseille, this was, after all, why I opted to believe the machine over my companion (a choice she took as an affront). With access to all the data, certainly the app had superior insight – or so I believed.

The core issue 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 – including its creators acknowledge the opacity. Nor can we verify its reasoning against transparent standards. So when we follow AI's advice, we are not being guided by reason. We are returning to the realm of faith. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, trust the machine – that may become our 21st-century credo.

Using Without Losing: The Essential Challenge

AI can be a formidable ally for mankind in scientific pursuit. It can help medical research, free us from "bullshit jobs", or manage taxes – duties that are repetitive and are unfulfilling. All to the good. But Kant and his peers did not champion reason over faith just so humans could optimize chores or have more leisure. Independent thought was not merely about efficiency – it was a discipline of freedom and human emancipation.

Human thought is often chaotic and fallible, but it forces us to argue, to question, to challenge concepts – and to recognize the limits of our own knowledge. It builds confidence, both personally and as a society. For Kant, the use of reason was never only about acquiring knowledge; it was about enabling people to become agents of their own lives, and to oppose domination. It was about building a ethical society grounded in the common foundation of rational discourse, rather than unquestioning acceptance.

With all the advantages AI brings, the paramount challenge is this: how can we harness its potential of advanced capability without eroding human rationality, the cornerstone of the Enlightenment and of free societies themselves? That is likely one of the central dilemmas of our century. It is a question we would do well not to outsource to the machine.