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This recent season, I was caught in congested traffic on the sweltering streets of a southern French city. At an intersection, my companion in the passenger 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. Moments later, we were stranded at a roadwork site.

A minor event, perhaps. But one that captures a central dilemma of our time, where technology permeates almost every aspect of our lives: who gets our trust to a greater degree – other people and our personal instincts, or the algorithm?

The Enlightenment's Promise and Our Modern Relapse

The influential German philosopher Immanuel Kant once defined the Enlightenment as "humanity's emergence from its self-imposed immaturity." This immaturity, he wrote, "is the incapacity to use one's own understanding without guidance from an external source." For ages, that guiding "other" for society was frequently the clergyman, the monarch, or the feudal lord – entities purporting to speak for divine will. To comprehend natural events like volcanic eruptions, people looked for explanations in religion. In organizing the social world, from commerce 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 ability to think rationally. They just didn't have the boldness to use it. With revolutions in America and France, a fresh era emerged: logic would replace blind faith, and the intellect, freed from dogma, would become the driver of progress and a more ethical world.

Today, 250 years later, one might question if we are quietly regressing into a form of intellectual immaturity. An app dictating a direction is just one example. AI risks becoming our contemporary authority – a unseen overseer that influences our decisions and behaviors. We are in danger of relinquishing the historically earned courage to reason for ourselves – and now, not to gods or kings, but to lines of code.

The Swift Adoption and Subtle Dangers of Algorithmic Reliance

ChatGPT debuted only in 2022, and already a global survey indicated that an overwhelming majority of respondents had used AI in the preceding half-year. Whether contemplating ending a relationship or selecting a vote, individuals are looking to machines for counsel. Data suggests a large majority of user queries concern personal life matters. Even more intriguing than our reliance on AI for judgment is what occurs when we allow it speak for us. Writing is now among the most common uses for tools like ChatGPT, just behind everyday tasks. The celebrated American author Joan Didion once remarked, “I write entirely to discover what I am thinking.” What occurs when we cease writing? Do we lose that path?

Worryingly, emerging research hints the answer may be yes. A study conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used brain monitoring to track the cognitive activity of participants who had could use AI, traditional search engines, or no aids. Those who could rely on AI showed the lowest brain activity and had difficulty quoting their own work. Maybe most concerning was that over time, participants in the AI group grew increasingly reliant, pasting large sections of text.

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

Certainly, AI's attraction stems from its efficiency. It saves time, reduces effort and – critically – offers a novel way 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 give up autonomy in exchange for the reassuring certainty of subordination. AI offers a modern avenue for relinquishing the weight of having to think and choose.

The Black Box Problem: Trust Without Understanding

AI's primary draw is its ability to perform tasks beyond our minds – sifting through vast datasets at lightning pace. 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 affront). With access to all the data, certainly the algorithm had superior insight – or so I thought.

The fundamental problem is that AI is a black box. It generates answers, but without necessarily deepening human understanding. We cannot fully grasp the process behind its decisions – including its creators acknowledge the opacity. Nor can we verify its logic against clear, objective criteria. So when we follow AI's advice, we are not being guided by reason. We are back in the realm of belief. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, side with the machine – that may become our future guiding principle.

Harnessing Without Eroding: The Critical Balance

AI can be a formidable ally for mankind in scientific pursuit. It can help medical research, free us from tedious tasks, or handle taxes – duties that are repetitive and are unfulfilling. All to the good. But Kant and his contemporaries did not advocate for reason over faith just so humans could assemble better furniture or have extra free time. Critical thinking was not merely about productivity – it was a discipline of liberty and human self-determination.

Human thought is inherently messy and error-prone, but it forces us to debate, to question, to challenge concepts – and to recognize the boundaries of our own knowledge. It builds self-reliance, both individually and collectively. For Kant, the exercise of reason was never only about acquiring knowledge; it was about enabling people to become authors of their own lives, and to oppose control. It was about creating a ethical society based on the shared principle of rational discourse, rather than blind belief.

With all the undeniable benefits AI offers, the paramount challenge is this: how can we harness its promise 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 would do well not to delegate to the machine.