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This recent season, I was caught in congested traffic on the scorching streets of a southern French city. At a crossing, my companion in the front seat suggested a right turn toward a famous spot for bouillabaisse. However, the digital guide on my phone commanded us to go forward. Fatigued and in a stifling car, I heeded the algorithm's directive. Moments later, we were stranded at a roadwork site.

A minor incident, perhaps. But one that captures a defining dilemma of our time, where digital tools touches almost every aspect of existence: whom do we trust to a greater degree – other people and our personal instincts, or the algorithm?

A Call for Intellectual Maturity and A Contemporary Backslide

The renowned German philosopher Immanuel Kant once defined the Enlightenment as "humanity's emergence from its self-imposed nonage." This state, he wrote, "is the inability to use one's personal reason without guidance from another." For ages, that directing force for human thought was frequently the priest, the monarch, or the landowner – entities purporting to channel God's voice. To explain natural events like volcanic eruptions, people looked for explanations in religion. In organizing the fabric of society, from economics to love, faith served as the primary guide.

“Sapere aude!” or “Dare to use your own understanding!”

Kant argued that humans always possessed the capacity for reason. They simply lacked the boldness to employ it. With upheavals in the 18th century, a new dawn arrived: reason would replace superstition, and the intellect, liberated from dogma, would become the engine of progress and a better world.

Today, two and a half centuries later, one might wonder if we are quietly regressing into a state of dependency. An app dictating a direction is merely the start. AI risks becoming our contemporary authority – a unseen overseer that steers our choices 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 Subtle Dangers of Algorithmic Reliance

ChatGPT was launched only in 2022, and yet a recent study found that an vast number of respondents had engaged with artificial intelligence in the preceding half-year. Whether contemplating ending a relationship or choosing a candidate, individuals are looking to machines for guidance. Research suggests a significant portion of user queries relate to non-work topics. Even more intriguing than our reliance on AI for judgment is what occurs when we allow it express for us. Composition is now one of the most common uses for tools like ChatGPT, just behind practical requests. The celebrated American author Joan Didion famously said, “I write purely to discover what I am thinking.” What occurs when we cease writing? Do we lose that path?

Worryingly, some evidence suggests the answer may be yes. A study conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used brain monitoring to track the cognitive activity of essay writers who had access to AI, Google, or no aids. Those who could use AI showed the lowest cognitive engagement and had difficulty accurately recalling 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 great a proportion of men … stay in perpetual nonage.”

Certainly, AI's attraction stems from its convenience. It saves time, 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 surrender autonomy in for the sake of the comforting security of obedience. AI presents a digital method of surrendering the burden of having to decide for oneself.

The Black Box Problem: Faith Over Reason

AI's primary draw is its capacity to accomplish things outside human capability – sifting through vast datasets at unprecedented speed. Stuck in the car in Marseille, this was, ultimately, why I opted to trust the app over my companion (a choice she interpreted as an insult). With knowledge of real-time information, certainly the app had superior insight – or so I thought.

The core issue is that AI operates as a opaque system. It produces answers, but without necessarily deepening human comprehension. We cannot fully grasp how AI reaches its decisions – including its programmers acknowledge the opacity. Nor can we verify its logic against transparent standards. So when we follow AI's recommendation, we are not being led by logic. We are returning to the domain 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 Essential Challenge

AI can be a powerful tool for mankind in scientific pursuit. It can help inventing drugs, liberate us from "bullshit jobs", or handle taxes – work that are repetitive and are unfulfilling. All to the good. But Kant and his peers did not champion reason over faith just so humans could optimize chores or have extra free time. Independent thought was not merely about productivity – it was a discipline of liberty and human self-determination.

Human thought is often chaotic and error-prone, but it compels us to argue, to question, to challenge concepts – and to recognize the limits of our own knowledge. It fosters self-reliance, both personally and as a society. For Kant, the use of reason was never solely about information; it was about empowering people to become agents of their own destinies, and to oppose domination. It was about creating a ethical society grounded in the common foundation of rational discourse, rather than unquestioning acceptance.

With all the undeniable benefits AI offers, the paramount challenge remains: how can we leverage its potential of advanced capability without eroding human reasoning, the bedrock of the Enlightenment and of liberal democracy themselves? That may be one of the central dilemmas of our century. It is a question we must strive not to delegate to the algorithm.