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This recent season, I found myself navigating in gridlocked traffic on the sweltering streets of a southern French city. At an intersection, my companion in the front seat advised a right turn toward a famous spot for fish soup. However, the navigation app on my phone instructed us to continue straight. Fatigued and overheated, I heeded the app's advice. Moments later, we were stuck at a construction site.

A seemingly trivial event, maybe. But one that captures a defining question of our era, where digital tools touches almost every aspect of existence: whom do we trust more – other people and our personal instincts, or the machine?

The Enlightenment's Promise and A Contemporary Backslide

The renowned German philosopher Immanuel Kant once defined the Enlightenment as "humanity's emergence from its self-inflicted immaturity." This state, he argued, "is the inability to use one's personal reason without guidance from an external source." For centuries, that directing force for society was frequently the clergyman, the monarch, or the feudal lord – figures claiming to speak for God's voice. To explain natural events like changing seasons, people looked for explanations in theology. In organizing the social world, from economics to love, faith acted as the main compass.

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

Kant maintained that humans always possessed the capacity for reason. They just didn't have the boldness to employ it. With upheavals in the 18th century, a new dawn arrived: logic would replace superstition, and the intellect, liberated from dogma, 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 form of dependency. An app suggesting a driving route is just one example. Artificial intelligence threatens to become our contemporary authority – a silent overseer that steers our decisions and behaviors. We are in danger of ceding the historically earned courage to think independently – and this time, not to deities or rulers, but to lines of code.

The Rapid Rise and Hidden Risks of Algorithmic Reliance

ChatGPT was launched only in 2022, and yet a global survey indicated that an overwhelming majority of respondents had engaged with artificial intelligence in the previous six months. Whether deciding on ending a relationship or choosing a candidate, individuals are increasingly turning to algorithms for counsel. Data suggests a significant portion of user queries relate to personal life matters. Even more intriguing than our reliance on AI for advice is what occurs when we let it speak for us. Writing is now one of the top uses for tools like ChatGPT, just behind everyday tasks. The celebrated American author Joan Didion once remarked, “I write entirely 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 yes. A study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used electroencephalography to observe the mental engagement of participants who had could use AI, traditional search engines, or nothing. Those who could rely on AI displayed the least cognitive engagement and had trouble quoting their own work. Maybe most concerning was that after a few months, participants in the AI group became increasingly reliant, copying large sections of text.

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

Certainly, AI's appeal lies in its convenience. It saves time, reduces effort and – importantly – offers a new method to abdicate accountability. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm argued that the appeal of authoritarianism could be partly explained by a human tendency to give up autonomy in exchange for the comforting security of subordination. AI offers a modern avenue for relinquishing the burden of having to think and choose.

The Opacity Dilemma: Faith Over Reason

AI's greatest allure is its capacity to accomplish things beyond our minds – sifting through oceans of data at unprecedented speed. Stuck in the car in Marseille, this was, ultimately, why I opted to believe the app over my friend (a decision she interpreted as an affront). With access to real-time information, surely the app must know best – or so I thought.

The fundamental problem is that AI operates as a opaque system. It produces knowledge, but without necessarily deepening human understanding. We do not truly know the process behind its conclusions – even its creators admit this. Nor can we verify its reasoning against clear, objective criteria. So when we follow AI's advice, we are not being guided by reason. We are back in the domain of faith. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, side with the machine – that may become our future guiding principle.

Using Without Losing: The Essential Challenge

AI can be a powerful tool for humanity in rational inquiry. It can help medical research, free us from "bullshit jobs", or handle administrative chores – duties that demand little thought and are unfulfilling. All to the good. But Kant and his peers did not advocate for reason over faith just so humans could assemble better furniture or have extra free time. Independent thought was not merely about productivity – it was a practice of freedom and human emancipation.

Human thought is often chaotic and error-prone, but it compels us to argue, to question, to challenge concepts – and to acknowledge the boundaries of our own understanding. It builds self-reliance, both personally and as a society. For Kant, the use of reason was never solely about information; it was about empowering people to become authors of their own destinies, and to oppose domination. It was about creating a ethical society grounded in the common foundation of reason and debate, rather than unquestioning acceptance.

With all the undeniable benefits AI offers, the paramount challenge remains: how can we leverage its promise of advanced capability without eroding human rationality, the cornerstone of the Enlightenment and of free societies themselves? That is likely one of the central dilemmas of our century. It is a question we would do well not to delegate to the algorithm.