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This past summer, I found myself navigating in congested traffic on the scorching streets of a southern French city. At an intersection, my companion in the front seat suggested a right turn toward a renowned spot for fish soup. Yet, the navigation app on my phone commanded us to go forward. Weary and in a stifling car, I heeded the app's advice. Minutes later, we were stranded at a roadwork site.

A minor event, perhaps. But one that captures a defining question of our era, where technology touches almost every aspect of existence: whom do we trust more – fellow humans and our personal instincts, or the algorithm?

The Enlightenment's Promise and A Contemporary Backslide

The influential German philosopher Immanuel Kant famously described the Enlightenment as "man's release from its self-inflicted immaturity." This state, he wrote, "is the incapacity to use one's personal reason without direction from an external source." For centuries, that guiding "other" for human thought was frequently the clergyman, the king, or the landowner – entities claiming to speak for God's voice. To explain natural events like volcanic eruptions, people sought answers in religion. In shaping the social world, from economics to matters of the heart, religious doctrine served as the main compass.

“Sapere aude!” or “Have courage to use your reason!”

Kant maintained that humans had the capacity for reason. They just didn't have the confidence to employ it. With upheavals in the 18th century, a fresh era emerged: logic would supplant blind faith, and the intellect, freed 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 form of dependency. An app suggesting a direction is just one example. AI threatens to become our contemporary authority – a unseen overseer that steers our choices and actions. We risk relinquishing the hard-won autonomy to reason for ourselves – and now, not to deities or rulers, but to lines of code.

The Rapid Rise and Hidden Risks of AI Dependence

ChatGPT debuted only in 2022, and already a recent study indicated that an vast number of people had used AI in the previous six months. Whether deciding on ending a relationship or choosing a candidate, individuals are looking to algorithms for counsel. Research suggests a large majority of user prompts concern personal life matters. Even more striking than our reliance on AI for advice is what occurs when we allow it express for us. Writing is now among 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?

Worryingly, some evidence suggests the answer may be yes. A study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used electroencephalography to track the mental engagement of participants who had access to AI, traditional search engines, or no aids. Those who could rely on AI showed the least cognitive engagement and had trouble accurately recalling their own work. Perhaps most troubling was that over time, individuals in the AI group grew progressively lazier, pasting entire blocks of text.

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

Certainly, AI's appeal lies in its efficiency. It saves time, reduces effort and – critically – offers a new method to abdicate 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 human tendency to give up autonomy in for the sake of the comforting security of obedience. AI offers a modern avenue for relinquishing the weight of having to decide for oneself.

The Black Box Problem: Faith Over Reason

AI's greatest allure is its ability to perform tasks outside our minds – sifting through vast datasets at unprecedented speed. Sitting in the car in Marseille, this was, after all, why I opted to trust the app over my friend (a choice she took as an insult). With knowledge of real-time information, certainly the algorithm must know best – or so I thought.

The fundamental problem is that AI operates as a black box. It produces knowledge, but not always fostering human comprehension. We do not truly know the process behind its decisions – even its programmers acknowledge the opacity. Nor can we verify its logic against transparent standards. So when we follow AI's advice, we are not being guided by reason. We are returning to the realm of faith. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, side with the machine – that could be our 21st-century credo.

Using Without Losing: The Critical Balance

AI can be a powerful tool for mankind in scientific pursuit. It can help inventing drugs, free us from "bullshit jobs", or handle administrative chores – duties that demand little thought and offer little satisfaction. All to the good. But Kant and his contemporaries did not advocate for enlightenment 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 self-determination.

Human thought is inherently messy and fallible, but it forces us to debate, to question, to test ideas – and to acknowledge the boundaries of our own understanding. It fosters confidence, both individually and collectively. 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 oppose domination. It was about creating a moral community based on the shared principle of rational discourse, rather than blind belief.

With all the advantages AI offers, the key question remains: how can we harness its potential of superhuman intelligence without undermining human rationality, the cornerstone of the Enlightenment and of free societies themselves? That may be one of the defining questions of our century. It is a question we must strive not to outsource to the algorithm.