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This recent season, I was caught in congested traffic on the sweltering streets of Marseille. At a crossing, my companion in the passenger seat suggested a right turn toward a renowned spot for fish soup. However, the navigation app on my phone commanded us to continue straight. Weary and overheated, I followed the algorithm's advice. Moments later, we were stranded at a construction site.

A minor event, perhaps. But one that encapsulates a defining question of our time, where digital tools touches nearly every facet of existence: who gets our trust to a greater degree – other people and our personal instincts, or the algorithm?

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 immaturity." This immaturity, he argued, "is the incapacity to use one's personal reason without guidance from another." For centuries, that guiding "other" for human thought was frequently the priest, the king, or the landowner – entities purporting to channel divine will. To comprehend natural events like volcanic eruptions, people looked for explanations in religion. In shaping the social world, from commerce to love, faith acted as the primary guide.

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

Kant maintained that humans had the ability to think rationally. They simply lacked the confidence to employ it. With upheavals in America and France, a new dawn arrived: logic would replace blind faith, and the intellect, freed from authority, would become the engine of progress and a better 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 just one example. AI threatens to become our contemporary authority – a silent overseer that steers our choices and actions. We risk relinquishing the historically earned autonomy to reason for ourselves – and now, not to deities or rulers, but to lines of code.

The Swift Adoption and Hidden Risks of Algorithmic Reliance

ChatGPT debuted a mere three years ago, and yet a recent study indicated that an overwhelming majority of respondents had engaged with artificial intelligence in the preceding half-year. Whether contemplating a breakup or choosing a candidate, individuals are increasingly turning to machines for counsel. Data suggests a significant portion of user prompts relate to personal life matters. Even more striking than our use of AI for judgment is what happens when we let it speak for us. Writing is now among the top uses for tools like ChatGPT, second only to practical requests. The late American author Joan Didion once remarked, “I write purely to find out what I am thinking.” What occurs when we cease writing? Do we cease discovering?

Worryingly, some evidence suggests the outcome may be affirmative. A study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used brain monitoring to observe the cognitive activity of participants who had access to AI, traditional search engines, or no aids. Those who could rely on AI showed the lowest brain activity and had difficulty quoting their own work. Perhaps most concerning was that over time, individuals in the AI group grew progressively lazier, copying large sections 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 convenience. It is fast, reduces effort and – importantly – offers a novel way 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 autonomy in exchange for the comforting security of subordination. AI offers a modern avenue for relinquishing the weight of having to think and choose.

The Black Box Problem: Trust Without Understanding

AI's greatest allure is its capacity to perform tasks beyond 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 friend (a decision she took as an insult). With access to real-time information, certainly the app must know best – or so I believed.

The fundamental problem is that AI is a black box. It generates answers, but not always deepening human understanding. We cannot fully grasp how AI reaches its conclusions – even its programmers acknowledge the opacity. Nor can we check its logic against clear, objective criteria. So when we heed AI's recommendation, we are not being guided by reason. We are back in the domain of faith. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, trust the machine – that may become our 21st-century guiding principle.

Using Without Losing: The Critical Balance

AI can be a formidable ally for humanity in scientific pursuit. It can aid in inventing drugs, free us from tedious tasks, or handle administrative chores – work that are repetitive 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 merely about efficiency – it was a discipline of liberty and human emancipation.

Human thought is often chaotic and fallible, but it compels us to debate, to question, to challenge concepts – and to recognize the limits of our own understanding. It builds self-reliance, both individually and as a society. For Kant, the use of reason was never solely about information; it was about empowering people to become authors of their own lives, and to resist control. It was about building a ethical society grounded in the shared principle 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 reasoning, the bedrock of the Enlightenment and of free societies themselves? That is likely one of the central dilemmas of our time. It is a question we would do well not to delegate to the machine.