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This recent season, I was caught in gridlocked traffic on the sweltering streets of Marseille. At an intersection, my companion in the front seat suggested a right turn toward a renowned spot for fish soup. Yet, the digital guide on my phone instructed us to go forward. Weary and in a stifling car, I followed the app's advice. Moments later, we were stuck at a roadwork site.

A minor incident, maybe. But one that captures a central question of our era, where technology touches nearly every facet of our lives: whom do we trust to a greater degree – other people and our own intuition, 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 nonage." This state, he argued, "is the incapacity to use one's personal reason without direction from another." For centuries, that guiding "other" for society was frequently the priest, the king, or the landowner – figures claiming to speak for God's voice. To comprehend phenomena like volcanic eruptions, people sought answers in theology. In shaping the social world, from economics to matters of the heart, religious doctrine served as the main compass.

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

Kant maintained that humans had the ability to think rationally. They simply lacked the confidence to use it. With revolutions in America and France, a fresh era emerged: logic would replace blind faith, and the human mind, freed from dogma, would become the driver of progress and a more ethical world.

Today, two and a half centuries later, one might wonder if we are slipping back into a form of dependency. An app dictating a driving route is merely the start. Artificial intelligence risks becoming our new "other" – a unseen guide that steers our choices and actions. We are in danger of relinquishing the hard-won courage to think independently – and this time, not to deities or rulers, but to lines of code.

The Swift Adoption and Subtle Dangers of Algorithmic Reliance

ChatGPT was launched only in 2022, and yet a global survey found that an vast number of people had engaged with artificial intelligence in the previous six months. Whether contemplating ending a relationship or selecting a vote, individuals are increasingly turning to machines for counsel. Data suggests a large majority of user queries concern non-work topics. Even more intriguing than our reliance on AI for judgment is what occurs when we let it express for us. Writing is now one of the most common uses for tools like ChatGPT, just behind everyday tasks. The late American author Joan Didion famously said, “I write purely to discover what I am thinking.” What occurs when we stop composing? Do we lose that path?

Worryingly, some evidence suggests the answer may be yes. A study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used brain monitoring to track the mental engagement of essay writers who had could use AI, traditional search engines, or nothing. Those who could rely on AI displayed the least cognitive engagement and had trouble quoting their own work. Perhaps most troubling was that after a few months, 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 lifelong immaturity.”

Of course, AI's attraction stems from 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 rise of fascism could be partly explained by a preference to surrender autonomy in exchange for the reassuring certainty of obedience. AI offers a modern method of surrendering the weight of having to think and choose.

The Black Box Problem: Faith Over Reason

AI's greatest allure is its ability to perform tasks beyond our minds – analyzing vast datasets at lightning pace. Sitting in the car in Marseille, this was, ultimately, why I chose to trust the app over my friend (a decision she interpreted as an affront). With knowledge of all the data, surely the app must know best – or so I thought.

The fundamental problem is that AI operates as a opaque system. It produces knowledge, but not always fostering human comprehension. We do not truly know how AI reaches its decisions – including its creators acknowledge the opacity. Nor can we check its reasoning against transparent standards. So when we heed 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, side with the machine – that could be our 21st-century guiding principle.

Using Without Losing: The Essential Challenge

AI can be a powerful tool for mankind in rational inquiry. It can aid in inventing drugs, free us from "bullshit jobs", or handle taxes – duties that are repetitive and offer little satisfaction. All to the good. But Kant and his peers did not advocate for enlightenment just so humans could assemble better furniture or have extra free time. Critical thinking was not merely about efficiency – it was a discipline of freedom and human emancipation.

Human thought is inherently messy and fallible, but it forces us to debate, to question, to challenge concepts – and to recognize the boundaries of our own understanding. It fosters confidence, both personally and as a society. For Kant, the use of reason was never only about acquiring knowledge; it was about empowering people to become authors 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 undeniable benefits AI offers, the key question remains: how can we harness its promise of advanced capability without eroding human rationality, the bedrock of the Enlightenment and of liberal democracy itself? That is likely one of the defining questions of our century. It is a question we would do well not to delegate to the algorithm.