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This past summer, I found myself navigating in gridlocked traffic on the scorching streets of a southern French city. At an intersection, my friend in the front seat suggested a right turn toward a renowned spot for bouillabaisse. However, the digital guide on my phone commanded us to go forward. Fatigued and overheated, I heeded the algorithm's directive. Minutes later, we were stuck at a roadwork site.

A seemingly trivial event, maybe. But one that captures a central question of our era, where digital tools permeates almost every aspect of our lives: whom do we trust to a greater degree – other people and our own intuition, or the machine?

A Call for Intellectual Maturity and Our Modern Relapse

The influential German philosopher Immanuel Kant famously described the Enlightenment as "humanity's emergence from its self-imposed nonage." This state, he wrote, "represents the inability to use one's own understanding without guidance from another." For centuries, that guiding "other" for human thought was often the clergyman, the king, or the landowner – entities purporting to channel God's voice. To explain phenomena like changing seasons, people sought answers in theology. In shaping the social world, from economics to matters of the heart, religious doctrine acted as the main compass.

“Sapere aude!” or “Have courage to use your own understanding!”

Kant argued that humans had the ability to think rationally. They simply lacked the boldness to employ it. With upheavals in the 18th century, a new dawn arrived: reason would supplant superstition, and the intellect, liberated from authority, would become the driver of advancement and a better world.

Today, two and a half centuries later, one might wonder if we are quietly regressing into a state of dependency. An app dictating a direction is just one example. Artificial intelligence risks becoming our contemporary authority – a unseen guide that influences our decisions and actions. We risk relinquishing the historically earned autonomy to think independently – and now, not to gods or kings, but to lines of code.

The Rapid Rise and Hidden Risks of Algorithmic Reliance

ChatGPT debuted a mere three years ago, and already a global survey found that an overwhelming majority of respondents had engaged with artificial intelligence in the previous six months. Whether deciding on ending a relationship or selecting a vote, individuals are increasingly turning to machines for counsel. Data suggests a large majority of user queries concern non-work topics. Even more intriguing than our use of AI for judgment is what happens when we let it express for us. Composition is now one of the top uses for tools like ChatGPT, second only to everyday tasks. The late American author Joan Didion famously said, “I write entirely to find out what I am thinking.” What occurs when we cease writing? Do we lose that path?

Alarmingly, some evidence hints the answer may be affirmative. A study conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used brain monitoring to track the mental engagement of participants who had could use AI, traditional search engines, or no aids. Those who could use AI displayed the lowest cognitive engagement and had difficulty accurately recalling their own work. Perhaps most concerning was that after a few months, participants in the AI group grew increasingly reliant, pasting large sections of text.

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

Certainly, AI's appeal lies in its convenience. It saves time, reduces effort and – importantly – offers a novel way to offload responsibility. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm proposed that the rise of fascism could be partly explained by a human tendency to give up autonomy in exchange for the reassuring certainty of subordination. AI offers a modern avenue for surrendering the burden of having to think and choose.

The Opacity Dilemma: Trust Without Understanding

AI's greatest allure is its capacity to perform tasks outside human capability – analyzing vast datasets at lightning pace. Stuck in the car in Marseille, this was, after all, why I chose to believe the machine over my friend (a choice she interpreted as an insult). With access to real-time information, surely the app had superior insight – or so I believed.

The core issue is that AI is a black box. It produces knowledge, but not always fostering human comprehension. We do not truly know the process behind its conclusions – even its creators admit this. Nor can we check its reasoning against transparent standards. So when we follow AI's recommendation, we are not being led by logic. We are back in the realm of belief. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, side with the machine – that may become our future guiding principle.

Harnessing Without Eroding: The Essential Challenge

AI can be a formidable ally for mankind in rational inquiry. It can help medical research, liberate us from "bullshit jobs", or manage taxes – work that demand little thought and offer little satisfaction. This is beneficial. But Kant and his contemporaries did not champion enlightenment 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 fallible, but it compels us to argue, to question, to challenge concepts – and to acknowledge the limits of our own knowledge. It fosters confidence, both personally and as a society. For Kant, the use of reason was never only about acquiring knowledge; it was about enabling people to become authors of their own destinies, and to oppose domination. It was about creating a moral community based on the common foundation of rational discourse, rather than unquestioning acceptance.

With all the undeniable benefits AI offers, the paramount challenge is this: how can we leverage its promise of superhuman intelligence without eroding human rationality, the cornerstone of the Enlightenment and of liberal democracy itself? That may be one of the central dilemmas of our century. It is a question we must strive not to delegate to the machine.