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This recent season, I was caught in congested traffic on the scorching streets of Marseille. At a crossing, my companion in the front seat suggested a right turn toward a famous spot for bouillabaisse. Yet, the digital guide on my phone commanded us to continue straight. Weary and overheated, I heeded the app's directive. Minutes later, we were stranded at a roadwork site.

A seemingly trivial incident, perhaps. But one that encapsulates a central dilemma of our era, where digital tools touches nearly every facet of existence: who gets our trust to a greater degree – 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-inflicted nonage." This immaturity, he argued, "is the inability to use one's own understanding without guidance from an external source." For ages, that directing force for human thought was often the clergyman, the monarch, or the feudal lord – entities claiming to speak for God's voice. To explain phenomena like changing seasons, people looked for explanations in religion. In shaping the social world, from economics to love, religious doctrine served as the primary guide.

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

Kant maintained that humans always possessed the capacity for reason. They simply lacked the confidence to employ it. With upheavals in the 18th century, a new dawn emerged: reason would replace superstition, and the human mind, freed from authority, would become the driver of advancement and a more ethical world.

Now, two and a half centuries later, one might wonder if we are quietly regressing into a state of intellectual immaturity. An app suggesting a driving route is merely the start. Artificial intelligence risks becoming our contemporary authority – a unseen overseer that steers our decisions and actions. We are in danger of ceding the hard-won courage to think independently – and now, not to gods or kings, but to computer programs.

The Rapid Rise and Subtle Dangers of Algorithmic Reliance

ChatGPT debuted a mere three years ago, and already a global survey indicated that an vast number of respondents had engaged with artificial intelligence in the previous six months. Whether contemplating a breakup or selecting a vote, individuals are increasingly turning to algorithms for guidance. Data suggests a large majority of user prompts relate to personal life matters. Even more intriguing than our reliance on AI for judgment is what happens when we let it express for us. Composition is now one of the top uses for generative AI, second only to everyday tasks. The late American author Joan Didion once remarked, “I write purely to discover what I am thinking.” What transpires when we cease writing? Do we lose that path?

Worryingly, some evidence suggests the outcome may be yes. A study conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used electroencephalography to observe the cognitive activity of participants who had could use AI, traditional search engines, or nothing. Those who could rely on AI showed the least brain activity and had difficulty accurately recalling their own work. Maybe most concerning was that after a few months, individuals in the AI group grew increasingly reliant, pasting entire blocks of text.

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

Certainly, AI's attraction stems from its convenience. It is fast, reduces effort and – critically – offers a new method to abdicate accountability. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm argued that the rise of fascism could be understood by a human tendency to surrender personal freedom in exchange for the reassuring certainty of obedience. AI offers a digital avenue for surrendering the burden of having to think and choose.

The Black Box Problem: Trust Without Understanding

AI's greatest allure is its capacity to perform tasks outside human capability – analyzing oceans of data at lightning pace. Stuck in the car in Marseille, this was, ultimately, why I chose to trust the app over my companion (a decision she took as an affront). With access to all the data, certainly the app had superior insight – or so I believed.

The fundamental problem is that AI is a black box. It produces answers, but not always deepening human comprehension. We do not truly know the process behind its decisions – even its creators acknowledge the opacity. Nor can we verify its logic against clear, objective criteria. So when we follow AI's recommendation, 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 future credo.

Using Without Losing: The Critical Balance

AI can be a powerful tool for humanity in scientific pursuit. It can aid in inventing drugs, free us from "bullshit jobs", or handle administrative chores – work 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 merely about productivity – it was a discipline of liberty and human self-determination.

Human thought is often chaotic and fallible, but it compels us to argue, to doubt, to test ideas – and to recognize 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 enabling people to become agents of their own lives, and to oppose domination. It was about building a moral community based on the shared principle of rational discourse, rather than blind belief.

With all the advantages AI offers, the key question is this: how can we leverage its potential of superhuman intelligence without undermining human reasoning, 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 would do well not to outsource to the algorithm.