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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 passenger seat suggested a right turn toward a renowned spot for bouillabaisse. However, the digital guide on my phone instructed us to go forward. Weary and overheated, I followed the app's advice. Moments later, we were stranded at a roadwork site.

A minor incident, maybe. But one that encapsulates a central question of our era, where digital tools permeates nearly every facet of our lives: who gets our trust more – other people and our own intuition, or the algorithm?

The Enlightenment's Promise 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 wrote, "represents the incapacity to use one's own understanding without direction from another." For ages, that guiding "other" for human thought was frequently the clergyman, the king, or the landowner – figures purporting to speak for divine will. To comprehend phenomena like changing seasons, people looked for explanations in theology. In shaping the social world, from economics to love, faith acted as the main compass.

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

Kant argued that humans had the capacity for reason. They just didn't have the boldness to use it. With revolutions in America and France, a fresh era emerged: reason would supplant blind faith, and the intellect, freed from dogma, would become the driver of advancement and a more ethical world.

Today, 250 years later, one might wonder if we are slipping back into a form of intellectual immaturity. An app suggesting a direction is merely the start. Artificial intelligence threatens to become our contemporary authority – a silent overseer that steers our decisions and actions. We risk ceding the historically earned 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 AI Dependence

ChatGPT debuted a mere three years ago, and already a recent study indicated that an vast number of people had engaged with artificial intelligence in the preceding half-year. Whether contemplating ending a relationship or selecting a vote, individuals are looking to machines for counsel. Research suggests a large majority of user queries relate to non-work topics. Even more intriguing than our use of AI for advice is what happens when we let it express for us. Composition is now among the top uses for generative AI, just behind everyday tasks. The celebrated American author Joan Didion once remarked, “I write entirely to discover what I am thinking.” What transpires when we cease writing? Do we lose that path?

Alarmingly, some evidence suggests the outcome may be affirmative. A study conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used brain monitoring to observe the mental engagement of essay writers who had access to AI, Google, or no aids. Those who could rely on AI displayed the least cognitive engagement and had trouble quoting their own work. Perhaps most concerning was that over time, individuals in the AI group became increasingly reliant, copying large sections of text.

“Inertia and fear,” Kant wrote, “are the reasons why so great a proportion of men … stay in lifelong immaturity.”

Certainly, AI's appeal stems from its efficiency. It is fast, minimizes work and – critically – offers a novel way to offload accountability. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm argued that the appeal of authoritarianism could be understood by a preference to give up personal freedom in exchange for the comforting security of subordination. AI presents a modern method of surrendering the weight of having to decide for oneself.

The Black Box Problem: Faith Over Reason

AI's primary draw is its ability to perform tasks beyond our minds – sifting through 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 interpreted as an affront). With access to all the data, certainly the app had superior insight – or so I believed.

The fundamental problem is that AI operates as a opaque system. It produces knowledge, but without necessarily fostering human comprehension. We cannot fully grasp the process behind its conclusions – even its programmers acknowledge the opacity. Nor can we verify its reasoning against transparent standards. So when we heed AI's recommendation, we are not being guided by reason. We are back in the domain of faith. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, trust the machine – that may become our 21st-century credo.

Using Without Losing: The Critical Balance

AI can be a powerful tool for humanity in scientific pursuit. It can aid in inventing drugs, free us from "bullshit jobs", or handle taxes – work that demand little thought and offer little satisfaction. All to the good. But Kant and his contemporaries 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 efficiency – it was a discipline of freedom and human emancipation.

Human thought is inherently messy and fallible, but it compels us to argue, to question, to challenge concepts – and to acknowledge the boundaries of our own understanding. It fosters self-reliance, 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 rational discourse, rather than blind belief.

With all the advantages AI brings, the paramount challenge is this: how can we harness its potential of superhuman intelligence without eroding human reasoning, the bedrock of the Enlightenment and of free societies themselves? That may be one of the defining questions of our century. It is a question we must strive not to outsource to the machine.