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This recent season, I found myself navigating in congested traffic on the scorching streets of Marseille. At an intersection, my companion in the front seat advised a right turn toward a renowned spot for bouillabaisse. However, the digital guide on my phone instructed us to continue straight. Weary and in a stifling car, I followed the app's directive. Moments later, we were stuck at a roadwork site.

A minor incident, perhaps. But one that encapsulates a defining question of our era, where technology touches 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 famously described the Enlightenment as "man's release from its self-imposed immaturity." This immaturity, he wrote, "represents the incapacity to use one's personal reason without guidance from another." For ages, that guiding "other" for human thought was often the priest, the monarch, or the feudal lord – entities purporting to channel God's voice. To explain natural events like volcanic eruptions, people sought answers in religion. In organizing the fabric of society, from commerce to love, religious doctrine served as the main compass.

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

Kant argued that humans had the capacity for reason. They simply lacked the boldness to use it. With upheavals in America and France, a new dawn arrived: reason would replace blind faith, and the human mind, freed from dogma, would become the engine of advancement and a better world.

Now, 250 years later, one might question if we are slipping back into a form of dependency. An app dictating a driving route is just one example. Artificial intelligence threatens to become our contemporary authority – a silent overseer that influences our decisions and actions. We risk ceding the hard-won courage to reason for ourselves – and this time, not to deities or rulers, but to computer programs.

The Rapid Rise and Subtle Dangers of Algorithmic Reliance

ChatGPT was launched only in 2022, and yet a global survey found that an overwhelming majority of respondents had used AI in the preceding half-year. Whether deciding on a breakup or selecting a vote, individuals are increasingly turning to algorithms for counsel. Research suggests a significant portion of user queries relate to non-work topics. Even more striking than our use of AI for judgment is what happens when we let it speak for us. Composition is now among the top uses for generative AI, second only to 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 cease discovering?

Worryingly, some evidence suggests the answer may be yes. A study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used electroencephalography to observe the mental engagement of essay writers who had access to AI, traditional search engines, or nothing. Those who could rely on AI displayed the lowest cognitive engagement and had trouble quoting their own work. Maybe most concerning 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 great a proportion of men … stay in perpetual nonage.”

Certainly, AI's attraction stems from its efficiency. It saves time, 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 appeal of authoritarianism could be partly explained by a human tendency to surrender personal freedom in exchange for the reassuring certainty of subordination. AI offers a modern avenue for relinquishing the weight of having to think and choose.

The Opacity Dilemma: Trust Without Understanding

AI's greatest allure is its ability to accomplish things beyond our minds – sifting through oceans of data at lightning pace. Stuck in the car in Marseille, this was, after all, why I chose to believe the app over my companion (a decision she took as an insult). With knowledge of real-time information, certainly the algorithm had superior insight – or so I believed.

The core issue is that AI operates as a opaque system. It generates answers, but not always deepening human comprehension. We cannot fully grasp the process behind its decisions – including its programmers acknowledge the opacity. Nor can we verify its logic against clear, objective criteria. So when we heed AI's advice, we are not being guided by reason. We are returning to the domain of faith. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, trust the machine – that may become our future guiding principle.

Using Without Losing: The Critical Balance

AI can be a powerful tool for humanity in rational inquiry. It can help inventing drugs, free us from tedious tasks, or manage administrative chores – duties that are repetitive and are unfulfilling. This is beneficial. But Kant and his peers did not champion enlightenment just so humans could optimize chores or have extra free time. Independent thought was not merely about productivity – it was a practice of liberty and human self-determination.

Human thought is often chaotic and fallible, but it forces us to debate, to question, to challenge concepts – and to acknowledge the limits of our own understanding. It builds confidence, both individually and collectively. For Kant, the exercise of reason was never only about information; it was about empowering people to become authors of their own destinies, and to resist domination. It was about building a ethical society grounded in the common foundation of reason and debate, rather than blind belief.

With all the undeniable benefits AI offers, the key question is this: how can we harness its promise of advanced capability without undermining human rationality, 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 would do well not to outsource to the algorithm.