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This recent season, I found myself navigating in congested traffic on the sweltering streets of Marseille. At an intersection, my companion in the passenger seat advised a right turn toward a renowned spot for bouillabaisse. Yet, the digital guide on my phone commanded us to go forward. Fatigued and overheated, I heeded the algorithm's advice. Moments later, we were stuck at a construction site.

A minor event, maybe. But one that captures a defining question of our time, where technology touches nearly every facet of existence: who gets our trust to a greater degree – other people and our personal instincts, or the machine?

The Enlightenment's Promise and Our Modern Relapse

The influential German philosopher Immanuel Kant famously described the Enlightenment as "man's release from its self-imposed immaturity." This state, he argued, "represents the incapacity to use one's own understanding without direction from another." For centuries, that directing force for human thought was often 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 shaping the social world, from commerce to matters of the heart, faith acted as the primary guide.

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

Kant maintained that humans had the capacity for reason. They just didn't have the boldness to employ it. With revolutions in America and France, a fresh era arrived: logic would supplant superstition, and the intellect, liberated from authority, would become the driver of progress and a better world.

Today, 250 years later, one might question if we are slipping back into a form of intellectual immaturity. An app dictating a driving route is just one example. Artificial intelligence threatens to become our new "other" – a unseen overseer that influences our decisions and actions. We are in danger of ceding the hard-won autonomy to reason for ourselves – and now, not to gods or kings, but to lines of code.

The Rapid Rise and Subtle Dangers of Algorithmic Reliance

ChatGPT was launched a mere three years ago, and already a recent study indicated that an overwhelming majority of people had engaged with artificial intelligence in the preceding half-year. Whether deciding on ending a relationship or choosing a candidate, individuals are increasingly turning to algorithms for guidance. Data suggests a significant portion of user prompts concern personal life matters. Even more intriguing than our reliance on AI for judgment is what occurs when we allow it express for us. Writing is now one of the most common uses for generative AI, just behind practical requests. The celebrated American author Joan Didion once remarked, “I write entirely to discover what I am thinking.” What transpires when we cease writing? Do we lose that path?

Alarmingly, some evidence suggests the outcome may be yes. A study conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used brain monitoring to observe the mental engagement of participants who had could use AI, traditional search engines, or no aids. Those who could use AI displayed the lowest cognitive engagement and had trouble quoting their own work. Perhaps most troubling was that over time, participants in the AI group grew progressively lazier, pasting entire blocks of text.

“Inertia and fear,” Kant wrote, “are the reasons why so great a proportion of men … remain in perpetual nonage.”

Certainly, AI's appeal lies in its efficiency. It is fast, reduces effort and – importantly – offers a novel way to abdicate responsibility. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm argued that the appeal of authoritarianism could be partly explained by a human tendency to surrender autonomy in exchange for the comforting security of obedience. AI presents a digital method of surrendering the burden of having to think and choose.

The Opacity Dilemma: Trust Without Understanding

AI's primary draw is its capacity to perform tasks outside our minds – sifting through vast datasets at unprecedented speed. Stuck 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, surely the algorithm had superior insight – or so I believed.

The fundamental problem is that AI operates as a black box. It generates knowledge, but without necessarily 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 advice, we are not being led by logic. We are returning to the domain of faith. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, trust the machine – that may become our future 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 tedious tasks, or handle taxes – work that are repetitive and are unfulfilling. All to the good. But Kant and his contemporaries did not advocate for reason over faith just so humans could assemble better furniture or have extra free time. Critical thinking was not merely about productivity – it was a practice of freedom and human self-determination.

Human thought is inherently messy and fallible, but it forces us to debate, to question, to challenge concepts – and to recognize the limits of our own knowledge. It fosters self-reliance, both individually and collectively. For Kant, the use of reason was never solely about information; it was about enabling people to become agents of their own lives, and to resist control. It was about building a moral community grounded in the shared principle of rational discourse, rather than unquestioning acceptance.

With all the undeniable benefits AI brings, the paramount challenge remains: how can we harness its promise of superhuman intelligence without eroding human reasoning, the cornerstone of the Enlightenment and of free societies themselves? That may be one of the defining questions of our century. It is a question we would do well not to delegate to the machine.