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This past summer, I found myself navigating in gridlocked traffic on the scorching streets of a southern French city. At a crossing, my friend in the front seat advised a right turn toward a renowned spot for fish soup. Yet, the digital guide on my phone commanded us to go forward. Fatigued and in a stifling car, I heeded the algorithm's advice. Minutes later, we were stranded at a construction site.

A seemingly trivial event, perhaps. But one that captures a central question of our era, where technology touches nearly every facet of existence: who gets our trust more – fellow humans and our personal instincts, or the machine?

A Call for Intellectual Maturity and A Contemporary Backslide

The renowned German philosopher Immanuel Kant famously described the Enlightenment as "humanity's emergence from its self-imposed immaturity." This immaturity, he wrote, "represents the inability to use one's personal reason without direction from another." For ages, that directing force for society was often the clergyman, the king, or the landowner – entities purporting to channel divine will. To comprehend natural events like volcanic eruptions, people looked for explanations in theology. In organizing the social world, from economics to love, faith served as the primary guide.

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

Kant maintained that humans always possessed the capacity for reason. They just didn't have the boldness to use it. With revolutions in America and France, a new dawn arrived: reason would supplant superstition, and the human mind, freed from dogma, would become the engine of progress and a more ethical world.

Now, 250 years later, one might wonder if we are quietly regressing into a state of intellectual immaturity. An app dictating a driving route is merely the start. Artificial intelligence threatens to become our new "other" – a unseen overseer that influences our decisions and actions. We are in danger of relinquishing the historically earned autonomy to reason for ourselves – and this time, not to deities or rulers, but to computer programs.

The Swift Adoption and Subtle Dangers of Algorithmic Reliance

ChatGPT was launched only in 2022, and yet a global survey found that an overwhelming majority of people had engaged with artificial intelligence in the preceding half-year. Whether deciding on a breakup or choosing a candidate, individuals are increasingly turning to algorithms for guidance. Research suggests a significant portion of user prompts relate to non-work topics. Even more striking than our use of AI for advice is what occurs when we allow it speak for us. Writing is now among the top uses for generative AI, second only to everyday tasks. The celebrated American author Joan Didion famously said, “I write entirely to discover what I am thinking.” What transpires when we stop composing? Do we cease discovering?

Worryingly, emerging research hints the outcome may be yes. A study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used brain monitoring to observe the cognitive activity of essay writers who had access to AI, Google, or nothing. Those who could use AI displayed the lowest cognitive engagement and had trouble quoting their own work. Perhaps most concerning was that after a few months, participants in the AI group became progressively lazier, copying large sections of text.

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

Of course, AI's attraction stems from its efficiency. It is fast, reduces effort and – critically – offers a novel way to abdicate accountability. 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 personal freedom in for the sake of the reassuring certainty of obedience. AI presents a digital method of relinquishing the weight of having to decide for oneself.

The Opacity Dilemma: Trust Without Understanding

AI's greatest allure is its ability to accomplish things beyond human capability – sifting through oceans of data at unprecedented speed. Stuck in the car in Marseille, this was, ultimately, why I chose to trust the machine over my friend (a decision she interpreted as an affront). With knowledge of all the data, certainly the algorithm must know best – or so I thought.

The core issue is that AI is a opaque system. It generates answers, but without necessarily fostering human understanding. We cannot fully grasp how AI reaches its conclusions – even its creators acknowledge the opacity. Nor can we verify its logic against transparent standards. So when we heed AI's recommendation, we are not being led by logic. We are back in the domain of belief. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, trust the machine – that may become our future credo.

Using Without Losing: The Essential Challenge

AI can be a powerful tool for mankind in scientific pursuit. It can help medical research, liberate us from tedious tasks, or manage 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 merely about productivity – it was a practice of freedom and human self-determination.

Human thought is inherently messy and fallible, but it compels us to debate, to doubt, to challenge concepts – and to recognize the limits of our own understanding. It builds self-reliance, both individually and collectively. For Kant, the use of reason was never only about information; it was about empowering people to become agents of their own lives, and to resist control. It was about creating a ethical society based on the shared principle of rational discourse, rather than blind belief.

With all the advantages AI offers, the paramount challenge remains: how can we leverage its promise of superhuman intelligence without undermining human rationality, the bedrock 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 algorithm.