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This past summer, I was caught in gridlocked traffic on the sweltering streets of Marseille. At an intersection, my friend in the passenger seat advised a right turn toward a renowned spot for fish soup. However, the navigation app on my phone instructed us to go forward. Weary and overheated, I heeded the algorithm's directive. Moments later, we were stranded at a roadwork site.

A minor event, maybe. But one that captures a defining question of our time, where digital tools touches nearly every facet of our lives: who gets our trust more – fellow humans and our own intuition, or the machine?

The Enlightenment's Promise and Our Modern Relapse

The influential German philosopher Immanuel Kant famously described the Enlightenment as "humanity's emergence from its self-inflicted immaturity." This immaturity, he argued, "is the incapacity to use one's personal reason without direction from an external source." For ages, that guiding "other" for human thought was frequently the clergyman, the monarch, or the feudal lord – entities claiming to channel God's voice. To explain natural events 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 reason!”

Kant maintained that humans always possessed the ability to think rationally. They just didn't have the confidence to use it. With revolutions in America and France, a fresh era arrived: reason would supplant superstition, and the human mind, liberated from dogma, would become the engine of advancement and a better world.

Today, 250 years later, one might question if we are quietly regressing into a state of intellectual immaturity. An app suggesting a driving route is merely the start. AI risks becoming our contemporary authority – a silent overseer that influences our decisions and actions. We are in danger of relinquishing the hard-won autonomy to reason for ourselves – and this time, not to gods or kings, but to lines of code.

The Rapid Rise and Subtle Dangers of Algorithmic Reliance

ChatGPT debuted only in 2022, and already a global survey indicated that an vast number of respondents had engaged with artificial intelligence in the preceding half-year. Whether contemplating a breakup or choosing a candidate, individuals are increasingly turning to machines for counsel. Data suggests a large majority of user prompts concern non-work topics. Even more intriguing than our reliance on AI for judgment is what occurs when we allow it express for us. Writing is now one of the top uses for generative AI, just behind everyday tasks. The celebrated American author Joan Didion once remarked, “I write purely to find out what I am thinking.” What transpires when we stop composing? Do we cease discovering?

Alarmingly, emerging research hints the outcome may be yes. A study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used brain monitoring to observe the cognitive activity of essay writers who had could use AI, traditional search engines, or no aids. Those who could rely on AI showed the least brain activity and had trouble quoting their own work. Perhaps most troubling was that over time, individuals in the AI group grew increasingly reliant, copying entire blocks of text.

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

Certainly, AI's appeal lies in its convenience. It saves time, reduces effort and – critically – offers a new method to offload 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 human tendency to give up autonomy in exchange for the comforting security of subordination. AI offers a digital method of surrendering the weight of having to decide for oneself.

The Black Box Problem: Trust Without Understanding

AI's primary draw 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 choice she interpreted as an affront). With knowledge of real-time information, certainly the app must know best – or so I thought.

The core issue is that AI is a black box. It generates answers, but not always fostering human comprehension. We cannot fully grasp how AI reaches its conclusions – even its creators acknowledge the opacity. 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 returning to the realm of faith. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, trust the machine – that could be our 21st-century guiding principle.

Using Without Losing: The Essential Challenge

AI can be a powerful tool for mankind in scientific pursuit. It can help inventing drugs, free us from tedious tasks, or handle administrative chores – work that are repetitive and are unfulfilling. All to the good. But Kant and his contemporaries did not champion reason over faith just so humans could optimize chores or have extra free time. Critical thinking was not merely about efficiency – it was a practice of freedom and human self-determination.

Human thought is often chaotic and fallible, but it forces us to debate, to question, to test ideas – and to recognize the boundaries of our own understanding. It builds self-reliance, both individually and as a society. For Kant, the use of reason was never solely about acquiring knowledge; it was about enabling people to become agents of their own destinies, and to resist control. It was about building a moral community grounded in the common foundation of rational discourse, rather than unquestioning acceptance.

With all the advantages AI offers, the key question remains: how can we leverage its promise of superhuman intelligence without undermining human rationality, the bedrock of the Enlightenment and of liberal democracy themselves? That may be one of the defining questions of our time. It is a question we would do well not to outsource to the algorithm.