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

A minor event, perhaps. But one that captures a defining dilemma of our time, where technology permeates almost every aspect of existence: who gets our trust to a greater degree – fellow humans and our personal instincts, or the algorithm?

The Enlightenment's Promise and Our Modern Relapse

The influential German philosopher Immanuel Kant famously described the Enlightenment as "humanity's emergence from its self-inflicted 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 society was often the priest, the king, or the landowner – entities purporting to channel divine will. To explain natural events like volcanic eruptions, people sought answers in theology. In shaping the social world, from economics to matters of the heart, religious doctrine acted as the primary guide.

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

Kant maintained that humans always possessed the ability to think rationally. They simply lacked the confidence to use it. With upheavals in America and France, a new dawn emerged: reason would replace superstition, and the intellect, freed from authority, would become the engine of advancement and a more ethical world.

Today, 250 years later, one might question if we are quietly regressing into a form of intellectual immaturity. An app suggesting a direction is merely the start. AI threatens to become our contemporary authority – a silent overseer that steers our choices and behaviors. We risk ceding the historically earned 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 indicated that an overwhelming majority of respondents had engaged with artificial intelligence in the previous six months. Whether contemplating a breakup or selecting a vote, individuals are increasingly turning to algorithms for guidance. Research suggests a significant portion of user queries concern personal life matters. Even more striking than our reliance on AI for judgment is what occurs when we allow it express for us. Writing is now one of the top uses for tools like ChatGPT, just behind everyday tasks. The late American author Joan Didion famously said, “I write entirely to discover what I am thinking.” What occurs when we stop composing? Do we lose that path?

Alarmingly, some evidence suggests the outcome may be yes. A study conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used electroencephalography to track the mental engagement of participants who had access to AI, traditional search engines, or no aids. Those who could use AI displayed the least brain activity and had difficulty quoting their own work. Perhaps most troubling was that after a few months, individuals in the AI group grew progressively lazier, copying 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, minimizes work and – critically – offers a new method to offload accountability. 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 give up personal freedom in exchange for the reassuring certainty of obedience. AI offers a modern method of surrendering the weight of having to decide for oneself.

The Black Box Problem: Faith Over Reason

AI's primary draw is its capacity to perform tasks outside human capability – analyzing vast datasets at unprecedented speed. Sitting in the car in Marseille, this was, after all, why I opted to trust the machine over my companion (a decision she took as an affront). With knowledge of real-time information, surely the algorithm must know best – or so I thought.

The fundamental problem is that AI operates as a opaque system. It generates answers, but not always fostering human understanding. We cannot fully grasp how AI reaches its conclusions – including its creators acknowledge the opacity. Nor can we verify its reasoning against clear, objective criteria. So when we follow AI's recommendation, we are not being led by logic. We are back in the domain of faith. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, side with the machine – that may become our 21st-century credo.

Using Without Losing: The Essential Challenge

AI can be a powerful tool for humanity in rational inquiry. It can help inventing drugs, free us from "bullshit jobs", or handle administrative chores – duties that demand little thought and are unfulfilling. All to the good. But Kant and his peers did not advocate for reason over faith just so humans could assemble better furniture or have more leisure. Independent thought was not merely about productivity – it was a practice of freedom 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 knowledge. It builds confidence, both personally and as a society. For Kant, the use of reason was never only about information; it was about empowering people to become authors of their own lives, and to resist domination. It was about creating a ethical society grounded in the common foundation of rational discourse, rather than blind belief.

With all the advantages AI offers, the key question is this: how can we harness its promise of superhuman intelligence without undermining human reasoning, the bedrock of the Enlightenment and of liberal democracy themselves? That may be one of the central dilemmas of our time. It is a question we would do well not to outsource to the algorithm.