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This recent season, I found myself navigating in congested traffic on the sweltering streets of Marseille. At a crossing, my companion in the front seat suggested a right turn toward a renowned spot for fish soup. Yet, the digital guide on my phone commanded us to continue straight. Weary and overheated, I followed the algorithm's directive. Minutes later, we were stuck at a construction site.

A seemingly trivial incident, maybe. But one that captures a defining question of our time, where technology permeates nearly every facet of our lives: whom do we trust more – fellow humans and our own intuition, or the machine?

The Enlightenment's Promise and Our Modern Relapse

The renowned German philosopher Immanuel Kant once defined the Enlightenment as "man's release from its self-inflicted immaturity." This immaturity, he argued, "is the inability to use one's own understanding without guidance from another." For centuries, that guiding "other" for society was often the clergyman, the monarch, or the feudal lord – figures purporting to channel God's voice. To comprehend phenomena like volcanic eruptions, people looked for explanations in theology. In organizing 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 argued that humans had the capacity for reason. They simply lacked the boldness to employ it. With upheavals in America and France, a fresh era emerged: reason would supplant superstition, and the intellect, liberated from dogma, would become the engine of advancement and a more ethical world.

Today, 250 years later, one might wonder if we are slipping back into a form of intellectual immaturity. An app suggesting a driving route is just one example. AI threatens to become our new "other" – a unseen overseer that steers our decisions and actions. We risk relinquishing the hard-won courage to think independently – and this time, not to gods or kings, but to lines of code.

The Rapid Rise and Subtle Dangers of AI Dependence

ChatGPT was launched a mere three years ago, and already a global survey indicated that an overwhelming majority of respondents had used AI in the previous six months. Whether contemplating ending a relationship or choosing a candidate, individuals are looking to machines for guidance. Research suggests a significant portion of user queries concern personal life matters. Even more intriguing than our use of AI for judgment is what happens when we let it speak for us. Composition is now one of the most common uses for tools like ChatGPT, just behind practical requests. The celebrated American author Joan Didion famously said, “I write purely to discover what I am thinking.” What transpires when we cease writing? Do we cease discovering?

Alarmingly, emerging research suggests the outcome may be yes. A study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used electroencephalography to observe the mental engagement of essay writers who had could use AI, traditional search engines, or no aids. Those who could rely on AI showed the lowest brain activity and had trouble accurately recalling their own work. Maybe most troubling was that after a few months, participants in the AI group became progressively lazier, pasting entire blocks of text.

“Laziness and cowardice,” Kant wrote, “are the reasons why so many of men … remain in lifelong immaturity.”

Certainly, AI's attraction lies in its convenience. It saves time, minimizes work and – importantly – offers a novel way to offload responsibility. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm proposed that the appeal of authoritarianism could be partly explained by a preference to surrender autonomy in for the sake of the comforting security of obedience. AI offers a digital avenue for surrendering the weight of having to decide for oneself.

The Opacity Dilemma: Faith Over Reason

AI's primary draw is its ability to accomplish things beyond our minds – sifting through vast datasets at lightning pace. Stuck in the car in Marseille, this was, ultimately, why I chose to trust the app over my friend (a decision she interpreted as an insult). With knowledge of real-time information, certainly the algorithm had superior insight – or so I believed.

The fundamental problem is that AI operates as a black box. It generates knowledge, but without necessarily deepening human understanding. We cannot fully grasp how AI reaches its decisions – including its programmers 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 realm of belief. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, side with the machine – that could be our future credo.

Harnessing Without Eroding: The Essential Challenge

AI can be a powerful tool for mankind in scientific pursuit. It can aid in medical research, liberate us from "bullshit jobs", or manage administrative chores – duties that are repetitive and offer little satisfaction. This is beneficial. But Kant and his contemporaries did not champion reason over faith just so humans could optimize chores or have more leisure. Independent thought was not just about productivity – it was a practice of freedom and human emancipation.

Human thought is often chaotic and error-prone, but it forces us to argue, to question, to test ideas – and to recognize the boundaries of our own knowledge. It fosters confidence, both personally and as a society. For Kant, the exercise of reason was never only about acquiring knowledge; it was about enabling people to become authors of their own destinies, and to resist domination. It was about building a ethical society based on the shared principle of reason and debate, rather than unquestioning acceptance.

With all the undeniable benefits AI brings, the paramount challenge is this: how can we harness its potential of superhuman intelligence without eroding human reasoning, the bedrock of the Enlightenment and of liberal democracy themselves? That may be one of the defining questions of our time. It is a question we must strive not to delegate to the algorithm.