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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 advised a right turn toward a renowned spot for bouillabaisse. However, the digital guide on my phone commanded us to go forward. Fatigued and in a stifling car, I followed the algorithm's directive. Minutes later, we were stuck at a roadwork site.

A seemingly trivial incident, perhaps. But one that encapsulates a central dilemma of our era, where technology touches almost every aspect of our lives: who gets our trust more – fellow humans and our own intuition, or the machine?

The Enlightenment's Promise and A Contemporary Backslide

The influential German philosopher Immanuel Kant once defined the Enlightenment as "humanity's emergence from its self-inflicted nonage." This state, he argued, "represents the inability to use one's own understanding without direction from another." For ages, that guiding "other" for society was often the clergyman, the king, or the feudal lord – entities purporting to speak for God's voice. To explain natural events like volcanic eruptions, people sought answers in religion. In shaping the fabric of society, from commerce to matters of the heart, religious doctrine served as the primary guide.

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

Kant argued that humans had the capacity for reason. They just didn't have the boldness to use it. With upheavals in America and France, a new dawn emerged: logic would replace superstition, and the intellect, freed from dogma, would become the engine of advancement and a more ethical world.

Now, 250 years later, one might wonder if we are quietly regressing into a state of intellectual immaturity. An app dictating a direction is merely the start. Artificial intelligence threatens to become our new "other" – a silent overseer that steers our choices and actions. We risk relinquishing the historically earned courage to think independently – and this time, not to gods or kings, but to lines of code.

The Rapid Rise and Hidden Risks of AI Dependence

ChatGPT was launched a mere three years ago, and yet a global survey indicated that an vast number of respondents had used AI in the preceding half-year. Whether contemplating a breakup or selecting a vote, individuals are increasingly turning to machines for guidance. Research suggests a significant portion of user queries relate to personal life matters. Even more intriguing than our use of AI for judgment is what happens when we allow it speak 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 purely to find out what I am thinking.” What occurs when we stop composing? Do we lose that path?

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 participants who had access to AI, Google, or nothing. Those who could use AI showed the lowest brain activity and had trouble quoting their own work. Perhaps most concerning was that over time, participants in the AI group grew progressively lazier, pasting large sections of text.

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

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 appeal of authoritarianism could be partly explained by a human tendency to surrender personal freedom in exchange for the reassuring certainty of subordination. AI presents a modern avenue for relinquishing the burden of having to think and choose.

The Black Box Problem: Faith Over Reason

AI's primary draw is its ability to accomplish things outside our minds – analyzing oceans of data at lightning pace. Stuck in the car in Marseille, this was, ultimately, why I chose to trust the machine over my friend (a choice she took as an affront). With knowledge of real-time information, certainly the algorithm had superior insight – or so I thought.

The fundamental problem is that AI operates as a black box. It produces answers, but without necessarily deepening human comprehension. We do not truly know how AI reaches its conclusions – even its programmers admit this. Nor can we check its reasoning 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 faith. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, side with the machine – that may become our future guiding principle.

Using Without Losing: The Essential Challenge

AI can be a powerful tool for humanity in rational inquiry. It can aid in inventing drugs, liberate us from tedious tasks, or manage administrative chores – work that demand little thought and are unfulfilling. This is beneficial. But Kant and his contemporaries did not champion reason over faith just so humans could assemble better furniture or have more leisure. Independent thought was not merely about efficiency – it was a practice of freedom and human emancipation.

Human thought is often chaotic and error-prone, but it compels us to argue, to doubt, to challenge concepts – and to recognize the limits of our own understanding. It builds confidence, both individually and as a society. For Kant, the use of reason was never solely about acquiring knowledge; it was about enabling people to become agents of their own destinies, and to resist control. It was about creating a moral community grounded in the shared principle of reason and debate, rather than blind belief.

With all the advantages AI offers, the paramount challenge is this: how can we harness its potential of advanced capability without eroding human rationality, the cornerstone of the Enlightenment and of free societies themselves? That is likely one of the defining questions of our time. It is a question we would do well not to outsource to the machine.