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This recent season, I found myself navigating in gridlocked traffic on the sweltering streets of a southern French city. At a crossing, my companion in the front seat advised a right turn toward a renowned spot for fish soup. However, the navigation app on my phone commanded us to continue straight. Fatigued and overheated, I followed the algorithm's directive. Minutes later, we were stuck at a construction site.

A minor incident, perhaps. But one that encapsulates a central question of our era, where digital tools touches nearly every facet of existence: whom do we trust to a greater degree – fellow humans and our own intuition, or the machine?

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-imposed nonage." This state, he wrote, "represents the inability to use one's own understanding without direction from another." For ages, that directing force for society was often the clergyman, the monarch, or the landowner – entities purporting to speak for divine will. To explain phenomena like changing seasons, people sought answers in religion. In organizing the fabric of society, from commerce to love, religious doctrine acted as the primary guide.

“Sapere aude!” or “Have courage to use your own understanding!”

Kant argued that humans always possessed the capacity for reason. They simply lacked the boldness to employ it. With revolutions in the 18th century, a new dawn arrived: reason would supplant blind faith, and the human mind, liberated from dogma, would become the driver of advancement and a more ethical world.

Today, two and a half centuries later, one might question if we are quietly regressing into a state of intellectual immaturity. An app dictating a driving route is merely the start. Artificial intelligence risks becoming our contemporary authority – a unseen overseer that influences our decisions and behaviors. We risk relinquishing the hard-won courage to think independently – and now, not to gods or kings, but to lines of code.

The Swift Adoption and Hidden Risks of AI Dependence

ChatGPT debuted a mere three years ago, and already a recent study indicated that an overwhelming majority of respondents had used AI in the previous six months. Whether contemplating a breakup or selecting a vote, individuals are increasingly turning to algorithms for guidance. Data suggests a large majority of user prompts relate to non-work topics. Even more intriguing than our reliance on AI for advice is what occurs when we allow it speak for us. Composition is now one of the most common uses for generative AI, just behind practical requests. The celebrated American author Joan Didion famously said, “I write purely to find out what I am thinking.” What transpires when we cease writing? Do we lose that path?

Worryingly, some evidence suggests the answer may be affirmative. A study conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used electroencephalography to observe the mental engagement of essay writers who had could use AI, Google, or nothing. Those who could rely on AI displayed the least cognitive engagement and had difficulty accurately recalling their own work. Perhaps most troubling was that after a few months, individuals in the AI group grew progressively lazier, copying entire blocks of text.

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

Of course, AI's appeal lies in its convenience. It is fast, reduces effort and – importantly – offers a novel way to offload accountability. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm argued that the rise of fascism could be understood by a preference to surrender personal freedom in exchange for the reassuring certainty of subordination. AI offers a modern avenue for relinquishing the weight of having to think and choose.

The Black Box Problem: Faith Over Reason

AI's primary draw is its ability to perform tasks outside our minds – sifting through vast datasets at unprecedented speed. Sitting in the car in Marseille, this was, ultimately, why I opted to believe the app over my companion (a choice she interpreted as an affront). With access to all the data, surely the app had superior insight – or so I believed.

The core issue is that AI operates as a opaque system. It generates knowledge, but not always fostering human comprehension. We cannot fully grasp the process behind its decisions – including its creators acknowledge the opacity. Nor can we check its logic against transparent standards. So when we follow AI's recommendation, we are not being led by logic. We are back in the realm of faith. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, trust the machine – that may become our future credo.

Using Without Losing: The Essential Challenge

AI can be a powerful tool for mankind in rational inquiry. It can aid in medical research, free us from "bullshit jobs", or manage administrative chores – duties 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. Critical thinking was not merely about efficiency – it was a discipline of liberty and human emancipation.

Human thought is inherently messy and error-prone, but it compels us to debate, to doubt, to challenge concepts – and to recognize the limits of our own understanding. It fosters self-reliance, both individually and as a society. For Kant, the use of reason was never solely about information; it was about enabling people to become agents of their own destinies, and to oppose domination. It was about building a moral community grounded in the common foundation of reason and debate, rather than unquestioning acceptance.

With all the undeniable benefits AI offers, the key question remains: how can we leverage its potential of advanced capability without undermining human rationality, the bedrock of the Enlightenment and of free societies themselves? That is likely one of the central dilemmas of our time. It is a question we must strive not to delegate to the machine.