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This recent season, I was caught in gridlocked 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 bouillabaisse. However, the navigation app on my phone instructed us to continue straight. Weary and overheated, I heeded the algorithm's directive. Minutes later, we were stranded at a roadwork site.

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

A Call for Intellectual Maturity and A Contemporary Backslide

The influential German philosopher Immanuel Kant once defined the Enlightenment as "man's release from its self-imposed immaturity." This immaturity, he wrote, "is the inability to use one's own understanding without direction from an external source." For ages, that guiding "other" for human thought was frequently the clergyman, the monarch, or the landowner – figures purporting to speak for divine will. To explain natural events like changing seasons, people sought answers in religion. In shaping the fabric of society, from commerce to love, religious doctrine acted as the main compass.

“Sapere aude!” or “Have courage to use your reason!”

Kant maintained that humans always possessed the capacity for reason. They simply lacked the confidence to employ it. With upheavals in the 18th century, a fresh era emerged: logic would replace blind faith, and the intellect, freed from dogma, would become the driver of advancement and a more ethical world.

Today, two and a half centuries later, one might question if we are quietly regressing into a form of dependency. An app dictating a direction is merely the start. AI risks becoming our new "other" – a silent overseer that influences our choices and actions. We risk relinquishing the historically earned courage to think independently – and now, not to gods or kings, but to computer programs.

The Swift Adoption and Subtle Dangers of Algorithmic Reliance

ChatGPT debuted only in 2022, and already a recent study indicated that an vast number of respondents had used AI in the previous six months. Whether deciding on ending a relationship or choosing a candidate, individuals are looking to machines for guidance. Research suggests a large majority of user queries concern personal life matters. Even more striking than our use of AI for judgment is what occurs when we allow it speak for us. Writing is now among the top uses for tools like ChatGPT, just behind everyday tasks. The celebrated American author Joan Didion famously said, “I write purely to discover what I am thinking.” What transpires when we stop composing? Do we cease discovering?

Alarmingly, emerging research suggests the outcome may be yes. A study conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used brain monitoring to observe the mental engagement of essay writers who had access to AI, Google, or nothing. Those who could rely on AI displayed the least brain activity and had trouble accurately recalling their own work. Perhaps most concerning was that over time, participants in the AI group became increasingly reliant, pasting entire blocks of text.

“Inertia and fear,” Kant wrote, “are the reasons why so many of men … remain in lifelong immaturity.”

Certainly, AI's attraction lies in its convenience. It saves time, reduces effort and – importantly – offers a new method to abdicate accountability. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm argued that the appeal of authoritarianism could be partly explained by a preference to give up autonomy in for the sake of the comforting security of subordination. AI presents a modern avenue for relinquishing the burden of having to decide for oneself.

The Black Box Problem: Faith Over Reason

AI's greatest allure is its ability to accomplish things beyond our minds – analyzing oceans of data at unprecedented speed. Stuck in the car in Marseille, this was, ultimately, why I chose to trust the machine over my friend (a decision she interpreted as an insult). With access to real-time information, certainly the app had superior insight – or so I thought.

The fundamental problem is that AI is a black box. It produces answers, but without necessarily fostering human understanding. We cannot fully grasp the process behind its conclusions – even its programmers acknowledge the opacity. Nor can we verify its reasoning against transparent standards. So when we follow AI's recommendation, we are not being led by logic. We are returning to the realm of belief. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, trust the machine – that may become our future guiding principle.

Harnessing Without Eroding: The Critical Balance

AI can be a powerful tool for humanity in scientific pursuit. It can aid in inventing drugs, liberate us from "bullshit jobs", or manage administrative chores – work that demand little thought and are unfulfilling. This is beneficial. But Kant and his peers did not advocate for enlightenment just so humans could optimize chores or have more leisure. Critical thinking was not just about efficiency – it was a practice of liberty and human self-determination.

Human thought is often chaotic and fallible, but it forces us to argue, to question, to challenge concepts – and to acknowledge the limits of our own knowledge. It builds self-reliance, both individually and collectively. For Kant, the use of reason was never only about information; it was about empowering people to become authors of their own destinies, and to oppose domination. It was about creating a ethical society grounded in the common foundation of reason and debate, rather than blind belief.

With all the undeniable benefits AI offers, the paramount challenge is this: how can we leverage its promise of superhuman intelligence without undermining human reasoning, the bedrock of the Enlightenment and of free societies themselves? That is likely one of the central dilemmas of our century. It is a question we must strive not to delegate to the machine.