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This recent season, I found myself navigating in congested traffic on the sweltering streets of Marseille. At a crossing, my friend in the front seat advised a right turn toward a famous spot for fish soup. However, the navigation app on my phone commanded us to go forward. Weary and overheated, I followed the app's advice. Moments later, we were stuck 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 our lives: who gets our trust more – fellow humans and our personal instincts, or the algorithm?

A Call for Intellectual Maturity and Our Modern Relapse

The renowned German philosopher Immanuel Kant famously described the Enlightenment as "humanity's emergence from its self-imposed immaturity." This state, he wrote, "is the incapacity to use one's personal reason without direction from another." For ages, that directing force for human thought was often the priest, the monarch, or the feudal lord – figures claiming to channel divine will. To explain phenomena like volcanic eruptions, people looked for explanations in religion. In organizing the social world, from economics to matters of the heart, faith served as the main compass.

“Sapere aude!” or “Have courage to use your own understanding!”

Kant maintained that humans always possessed the ability to think rationally. They simply lacked the confidence to employ it. With revolutions in the 18th century, a fresh era arrived: reason would replace blind faith, and the intellect, freed from authority, would become the driver of advancement and a more ethical world.

Today, 250 years later, one might question if we are slipping back into a form of dependency. An app dictating a direction is merely the start. AI threatens to become our new "other" – a silent guide that steers our decisions and actions. We are in danger of ceding the historically earned autonomy to think independently – and now, not to deities or rulers, but to computer programs.

The Rapid Rise and Subtle Dangers of Algorithmic Reliance

ChatGPT was launched a mere three years ago, and yet a global survey found that an vast number of respondents had engaged with artificial intelligence in the previous six months. Whether deciding on a breakup or selecting a vote, individuals are looking to algorithms for counsel. Data suggests a significant portion of user queries concern non-work topics. Even more intriguing than our use of AI for judgment is what occurs when we let it speak for us. Composition is now one of the top uses for generative AI, just behind practical requests. The celebrated American author Joan Didion famously said, “I write purely to find out what I am thinking.” What transpires when we stop composing? Do we lose that path?

Worryingly, emerging research hints the outcome may be affirmative. A study conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used electroencephalography to observe the mental engagement of participants who had access to AI, traditional search engines, or no aids. Those who could use AI displayed the lowest cognitive engagement and had trouble quoting their own work. Perhaps most troubling was that after a few months, participants in the AI group became increasingly reliant, pasting large sections of text.

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

Certainly, AI's appeal lies in its efficiency. It is fast, minimizes work and – critically – offers a new method to offload accountability. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm proposed that the rise of fascism could be understood by a human tendency to surrender personal freedom in for the sake of the reassuring certainty of subordination. 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 capacity to perform tasks outside human capability – analyzing oceans of data at lightning pace. Sitting in the car in Marseille, this was, after all, why I opted to trust the machine over my friend (a decision she interpreted as an affront). With access to all the data, surely the app had superior insight – or so I thought.

The core issue is that AI is a black box. It generates knowledge, but not always fostering human understanding. We cannot fully grasp the process behind its decisions – including its programmers acknowledge the opacity. Nor can we verify its reasoning against transparent standards. So when we follow AI's advice, we are not being led by logic. We are returning to the domain of belief. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, trust the machine – that may become our 21st-century credo.

Harnessing Without Eroding: The Essential Challenge

AI can be a formidable ally for mankind in rational inquiry. It can help inventing drugs, free us from tedious tasks, or manage taxes – duties that are repetitive and offer little satisfaction. This is beneficial. But Kant and his peers did not champion enlightenment just so humans could assemble better furniture or have more leisure. Critical thinking was not merely about productivity – it was a practice of liberty and human self-determination.

Human thought is often chaotic and fallible, but it compels us to argue, to question, to challenge concepts – and to acknowledge the limits of our own understanding. It builds confidence, both personally and as a society. 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 resist domination. It was about building a ethical society grounded in the common foundation of rational discourse, rather than unquestioning acceptance.

With all the advantages AI offers, the paramount challenge remains: how can we harness its promise of superhuman intelligence without undermining human rationality, the cornerstone of the Enlightenment and of free societies itself? That is likely one of the central dilemmas of our time. It is a question we would do well not to outsource to the algorithm.