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This recent season, I was caught in gridlocked traffic on the sweltering streets of a southern French city. At a crossing, my companion in the front seat suggested a right turn toward a famous spot for fish soup. Yet, the navigation app on my phone commanded us to go forward. Weary and overheated, I followed the app's directive. Minutes later, we were stranded at a roadwork site.

A minor event, maybe. But one that encapsulates a defining question of our era, where technology permeates nearly every facet of our lives: who gets our trust to a greater degree – fellow humans and our own intuition, or the machine?

A Call for Intellectual Maturity and A Contemporary Backslide

The renowned German philosopher Immanuel Kant once defined the Enlightenment as "man's release from its self-inflicted nonage." This state, he argued, "is the incapacity to use one's own understanding without guidance from another." For ages, that directing force for society was often the clergyman, the monarch, or the feudal lord – entities claiming to speak for divine will. To explain natural events like volcanic eruptions, people sought answers in religion. In organizing the fabric of society, from commerce to matters of the heart, religious doctrine served as the main compass.

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

Kant argued that humans always possessed the ability to think rationally. They simply lacked the confidence to employ it. With revolutions in America and France, a fresh era emerged: logic would replace blind faith, and the human mind, freed from authority, would become the driver of progress and a more ethical world.

Now, 250 years later, one might question if we are slipping back into a form of intellectual immaturity. An app dictating a driving route is just one example. Artificial intelligence threatens to become our new "other" – a silent guide that influences our decisions and behaviors. We are in danger of relinquishing the hard-won autonomy to think independently – and now, not to deities or rulers, but to computer programs.

The Rapid Rise and Subtle Dangers of AI Dependence

ChatGPT debuted a mere three years ago, and already a global survey found that an vast number of people had used AI in the preceding half-year. Whether contemplating ending a relationship or selecting a vote, individuals are increasingly turning to algorithms for guidance. Research suggests a significant portion of user prompts relate to non-work topics. Even more intriguing than our use of 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, second only to practical requests. The late 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 affirmative. A study conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used electroencephalography to track the mental engagement of essay writers who had could use AI, Google, or no aids. Those who could use AI displayed the least brain activity and had difficulty quoting their own work. Maybe most concerning was that after a few months, individuals in the AI group became progressively lazier, 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 appeal stems from its convenience. It saves time, minimizes work and – critically – offers a new method to abdicate responsibility. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm argued that the appeal of authoritarianism could be partly explained by a preference to surrender personal freedom in for the sake of the reassuring certainty of obedience. AI presents a modern method of relinquishing the burden of having to decide for oneself.

The Black Box Problem: Trust Without Understanding

AI's greatest allure is its capacity to accomplish things outside our minds – analyzing oceans of data at lightning pace. Stuck in the car in Marseille, this was, ultimately, why I chose to believe the app over my companion (a decision she interpreted as an insult). With access to real-time information, certainly 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 fostering human comprehension. We do not truly know 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 led by logic. We are back in the realm of faith. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, side with the machine – that may become our 21st-century guiding principle.

Using Without Losing: The Critical Balance

AI can be a powerful tool for mankind in scientific pursuit. It can aid in medical research, liberate us from tedious tasks, or manage administrative chores – duties that demand little thought and offer little satisfaction. This is beneficial. But Kant and his contemporaries did not advocate for enlightenment just so humans could assemble better furniture or have more leisure. Independent thought was not merely about productivity – it was a discipline of liberty and human emancipation.

Human thought is often chaotic and fallible, but it compels us to argue, to question, to test ideas – and to acknowledge the limits of our own knowledge. It fosters confidence, both individually and collectively. For Kant, the exercise of reason was never only about information; it was about enabling people to become authors of their own destinies, and to oppose domination. It was about building a moral community grounded in the shared principle 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 potential of superhuman intelligence without eroding human rationality, the cornerstone of the Enlightenment and of liberal democracy 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 algorithm.