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This past summer, I found myself navigating in congested traffic on the scorching streets of a southern French city. At a crossing, my friend in the passenger seat advised a right turn toward a renowned spot for fish soup. Yet, the navigation app on my phone commanded us to go forward. Weary and in a stifling car, I followed the algorithm's advice. Minutes later, we were stuck at a construction site.

A minor event, perhaps. But one that captures a defining question of our era, where digital tools permeates almost every aspect of existence: whom do we trust to a greater degree – fellow humans and our personal instincts, or the machine?

A Call for Intellectual Maturity and Our Modern Relapse

The renowned German philosopher Immanuel Kant famously described the Enlightenment as "man's release from its self-inflicted nonage." This state, he wrote, "represents the incapacity to use one's personal reason without direction from another." For centuries, that directing force for human thought was frequently the clergyman, the king, or the feudal lord – figures claiming to speak for God's voice. To comprehend natural events like volcanic eruptions, people sought answers in religion. In organizing the social world, from economics to matters of the heart, faith acted as the primary guide.

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

Kant maintained that humans always possessed the ability to think rationally. They just didn't have the boldness to use it. With upheavals in America and France, a new dawn emerged: logic would supplant superstition, and the intellect, freed from authority, would become the engine of advancement and a better world.

Today, 250 years later, one might wonder if we are slipping back into a state of dependency. An app dictating a direction is just one example. Artificial intelligence risks becoming our contemporary authority – a unseen guide that steers our choices and behaviors. We are in danger of ceding the historically earned courage to think independently – and this time, not to deities or rulers, but to computer programs.

The Rapid Rise and Hidden Risks of AI Dependence

ChatGPT was launched only in 2022, and yet a recent study indicated that an vast number of respondents had used AI in the preceding half-year. Whether deciding on a breakup or choosing a candidate, individuals are increasingly turning to algorithms for counsel. Data suggests a large majority of user queries concern personal life matters. Even more striking than our use of AI for judgment is what happens when we let it express for us. Writing is now one of the most common uses for tools like ChatGPT, second only to practical requests. The celebrated American author Joan Didion once remarked, “I write purely to find out what I am thinking.” What transpires when we stop composing? Do we cease discovering?

Worryingly, emerging research hints the answer may be yes. A study conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used electroencephalography to track the cognitive activity of participants who had access to AI, Google, or no aids. Those who could rely on AI showed 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 increasingly reliant, pasting entire blocks of text.

“Laziness and cowardice,” Kant wrote, “are the reasons why so great a proportion of men … stay in perpetual nonage.”

Of course, AI's appeal stems from its efficiency. It saves time, minimizes work and – critically – offers a new method 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 give up autonomy in for the sake of the comforting security of subordination. AI presents a modern method of relinquishing the burden of having to think and choose.

The Opacity Dilemma: Faith Over Reason

AI's primary draw is its capacity to accomplish things beyond human capability – sifting through oceans of data 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 interpreted as an insult). With knowledge of all the data, certainly the app must know best – or so I believed.

The fundamental problem is that AI is a opaque system. It generates knowledge, but without necessarily fostering human understanding. We do not truly know the process behind its conclusions – even its creators admit this. Nor can we verify its logic against clear, objective criteria. So when we heed AI's advice, we are not being guided by reason. We are back in the realm of belief. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, trust the machine – that could be our future credo.

Harnessing Without Eroding: The Critical Balance

AI can be a powerful tool for mankind in rational inquiry. It can help medical research, liberate us from "bullshit jobs", or handle administrative chores – duties that are repetitive and offer little satisfaction. This is beneficial. 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 just about efficiency – it was a practice of liberty and human self-determination.

Human thought is inherently messy and error-prone, but it forces us to debate, to question, to challenge concepts – and to acknowledge the limits of our own understanding. It builds self-reliance, both individually and as a society. For Kant, the exercise of reason was never solely about information; it was about enabling people to become agents of their own lives, and to oppose domination. It was about creating a ethical society based on the common foundation of rational discourse, rather than unquestioning acceptance.

With all the undeniable benefits AI brings, the key question remains: how can we harness its promise of superhuman intelligence without eroding human rationality, 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 algorithm.