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This past summer, I was caught in congested traffic on the scorching streets of Marseille. At a crossing, my friend 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. Fatigued and in a stifling car, I followed the app's advice. Minutes later, we were stuck at a roadwork site.

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

A Call for Intellectual Maturity and Our Modern Relapse

The influential German philosopher Immanuel Kant once defined the Enlightenment as "humanity's emergence from its self-inflicted nonage." This immaturity, he wrote, "represents the incapacity to use one's own understanding without direction from another." For centuries, that directing force for society was frequently the clergyman, the monarch, or the feudal lord – figures purporting to speak for divine will. To explain phenomena like changing seasons, 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 “Have courage to use your reason!”

Kant maintained that humans always possessed the ability to think rationally. They just didn't have the boldness to employ it. With upheavals in the 18th century, a new dawn arrived: logic would supplant superstition, and the human mind, liberated from dogma, would become the driver of advancement and a better world.

Now, 250 years later, one might question if we are quietly regressing into a state of intellectual immaturity. An app suggesting a driving route is merely the start. Artificial intelligence threatens to become our contemporary authority – a unseen guide that steers our decisions and actions. We are in danger of relinquishing the hard-won autonomy to think independently – and this time, not to deities or rulers, but to computer programs.

The Rapid Rise and Subtle Dangers of Algorithmic Reliance

ChatGPT debuted only in 2022, and yet a global survey found that an vast number of people 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. Data suggests a significant portion of user queries concern non-work topics. Even more intriguing than our reliance on AI for judgment is what occurs when we let it express for us. Writing is now one of the top uses for generative AI, just behind practical requests. The celebrated American author Joan Didion famously said, “I write entirely to find out what I am thinking.” What transpires when we cease writing? Do we cease discovering?

Alarmingly, some evidence hints the outcome may be affirmative. A study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used brain monitoring to observe the mental engagement of essay writers who had access to AI, Google, or no aids. Those who could rely on AI showed the least brain activity and had difficulty accurately recalling their own work. Perhaps most troubling was that over time, participants in the AI group grew increasingly reliant, pasting large sections of text.

“Inertia and fear,” Kant wrote, “are the reasons why so many of men … stay in perpetual nonage.”

Of course, AI's appeal lies in its efficiency. It saves time, reduces effort and – critically – offers a novel way to abdicate responsibility. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm argued that the rise of fascism could be understood by a human tendency to give up autonomy in exchange for the comforting security of obedience. AI offers a digital avenue for surrendering the weight of having to think and choose.

The Opacity Dilemma: Faith Over Reason

AI's primary draw is its capacity to perform tasks outside human capability – analyzing oceans of data at lightning pace. Sitting in the car in Marseille, this was, ultimately, why I opted to trust the app over my friend (a choice she took as an insult). With access to real-time information, surely the app must know best – or so I thought.

The fundamental problem is that AI operates as a black box. It generates answers, but without necessarily deepening human understanding. We do not truly know how AI reaches its decisions – even its creators acknowledge the opacity. Nor can we check its reasoning against clear, objective criteria. So when we follow AI's advice, we are not being led by logic. We are returning to the domain of belief. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, side with the machine – that may become our 21st-century credo.

Harnessing Without Eroding: The Critical Balance

AI can be a formidable ally for mankind in scientific pursuit. It can help medical research, liberate us from "bullshit jobs", or handle administrative chores – work that are repetitive and offer little satisfaction. 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 more leisure. Critical thinking was not just about efficiency – it was a discipline of freedom and human emancipation.

Human thought is often chaotic and error-prone, but it compels us to debate, to doubt, to test ideas – and to recognize 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 acquiring knowledge; it was about empowering people to become authors of their own lives, and to oppose control. It was about building a moral community based on the common foundation of reason and debate, rather than blind belief.

With all the undeniable benefits AI brings, the paramount challenge is this: how can we leverage its potential of advanced capability without undermining human rationality, the cornerstone of the Enlightenment and of free societies itself? That is likely one of the central dilemmas of our century. It is a question we would do well not to outsource to the machine.