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This recent season, I found myself navigating in congested traffic on the scorching streets of Marseille. At an intersection, my friend in the front seat advised a right turn toward a renowned spot for fish soup. Yet, the navigation app on my phone commanded us to go forward. Fatigued and in a stifling car, I followed the algorithm's directive. Moments later, we were stuck at a roadwork site.

A minor incident, maybe. But one that captures a defining question of our era, where technology touches nearly every facet of our lives: whom do we trust to a greater degree – fellow humans and our own intuition, or the algorithm?

The Enlightenment's Promise and Our Modern Relapse

The renowned German philosopher Immanuel Kant once defined the Enlightenment as "man's release from its self-inflicted immaturity." This state, he wrote, "is the inability to use one's own understanding without direction from another." For centuries, that guiding "other" for human thought was often the priest, the monarch, or the landowner – figures purporting to speak for God's voice. To explain natural events like changing seasons, people sought answers in theology. In organizing the fabric of society, from economics to matters of the heart, religious doctrine served as the primary guide.

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

Kant maintained that humans had the ability to think rationally. They simply lacked the confidence to use it. With revolutions in America and France, a new dawn arrived: logic would supplant superstition, and the human mind, liberated from dogma, would become the engine of advancement and a more ethical world.

Today, two and a half centuries later, one might wonder if we are quietly regressing into a form of intellectual immaturity. An app dictating a driving route is merely the start. Artificial intelligence threatens to become our contemporary authority – a silent guide that steers our choices and actions. We are in danger of relinquishing the hard-won autonomy to think independently – and now, not to gods or kings, but to computer programs.

The Rapid Rise and Hidden Risks of AI Dependence

ChatGPT debuted a mere three years ago, and yet a recent study indicated that an overwhelming majority of respondents had engaged with artificial intelligence in the preceding half-year. Whether contemplating ending a relationship or selecting a vote, individuals are increasingly turning to machines for guidance. Research suggests a large majority of user queries relate to non-work topics. Even more intriguing than our use of AI for judgment is what happens when we let it express for us. Composition is now one of the top uses for tools like ChatGPT, just behind practical requests. The celebrated American author Joan Didion once remarked, “I write purely to find out what I am thinking.” What occurs when we cease writing? Do we cease discovering?

Alarmingly, some evidence suggests the answer may be yes. A study conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used brain monitoring to observe the cognitive activity of participants who had access to AI, traditional search engines, or no aids. Those who could use AI displayed the least cognitive engagement and had difficulty accurately recalling their own work. Perhaps most troubling was that after a few months, participants in the AI group grew increasingly reliant, pasting large sections of text.

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

Certainly, AI's attraction stems from its efficiency. It saves time, 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 appeal of authoritarianism could be understood by a preference to give up autonomy in for the sake of the comforting security of subordination. AI offers a digital avenue for surrendering the burden of having to decide for oneself.

The Opacity Dilemma: 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, after all, why I chose to trust the machine over my companion (a choice she took as an affront). With access to real-time information, surely the app must know best – or so I believed.

The fundamental problem is that AI operates as a opaque system. It generates answers, but not always deepening human understanding. We cannot fully grasp the process behind its decisions – even its creators acknowledge the opacity. Nor can we verify its reasoning against clear, objective criteria. So when we follow AI's recommendation, we are not being led by logic. We are returning to the domain of belief. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, side with the machine – that could be our 21st-century guiding principle.

Using Without Losing: The Essential Challenge

AI can be a powerful tool for humanity in rational inquiry. It can aid in medical research, free us from tedious tasks, or handle taxes – 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 assemble better furniture or have more leisure. Independent thought was not merely about productivity – it was a practice of liberty and human emancipation.

Human thought is often chaotic and fallible, but it compels us to debate, to question, to challenge concepts – and to acknowledge the boundaries of our own knowledge. It fosters confidence, both personally 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 resist domination. It was about creating a ethical society grounded in the common foundation of reason and debate, rather than unquestioning acceptance.

With all the advantages AI brings, the key question remains: how can we harness its potential of advanced capability without eroding human reasoning, the bedrock of the Enlightenment and of free societies themselves? That is likely one of the defining questions of our time. It is a question we must strive not to delegate to the machine.