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This recent season, I found myself navigating in gridlocked traffic on the scorching streets of a southern French city. At an intersection, my friend in the passenger seat advised a right turn toward a famous spot for bouillabaisse. Yet, the digital guide on my phone instructed us to continue straight. Weary and in a stifling car, I heeded the algorithm's advice. Minutes later, we were stuck at a roadwork site.

A minor event, perhaps. But one that encapsulates a central dilemma of our era, where technology permeates almost every aspect of our lives: who gets our trust more – other people and our own intuition, or the algorithm?

A Call for Intellectual Maturity and Our Modern Relapse

The renowned German philosopher Immanuel Kant famously described the Enlightenment as "man's release from its self-imposed nonage." This state, he argued, "represents the inability to use one's personal reason without guidance from another." For ages, that directing force for society was frequently the priest, the monarch, or the landowner – figures purporting to speak for divine will. To explain natural events like volcanic eruptions, people looked for explanations in religion. In shaping the fabric of society, from commerce to matters of the heart, faith acted as the primary guide.

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

Kant maintained that humans always possessed the ability to think rationally. They simply lacked the boldness to employ it. With revolutions in America and France, a new dawn arrived: reason would replace blind faith, and the human mind, freed from authority, would become the engine of advancement and a more ethical world.

Today, 250 years later, one might question if we are quietly regressing into a state of dependency. An app suggesting a driving route is merely the start. Artificial intelligence threatens to become our contemporary authority – a unseen overseer that influences our choices and behaviors. We are in danger of ceding 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 AI Dependence

ChatGPT debuted a mere three years ago, and yet a recent study found that an vast number of people had engaged with artificial intelligence in the previous six months. Whether deciding on ending a relationship or choosing a candidate, individuals are looking to machines for counsel. Research suggests a large majority of user queries concern personal life matters. Even more striking than our reliance on AI for advice is what occurs when we let it express for us. Writing is now among the top uses for generative AI, second only to practical requests. The late American author Joan Didion famously said, “I write purely to find out what I am thinking.” What transpires when we stop composing? Do we cease discovering?

Alarmingly, some evidence hints the outcome may be yes. A study conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used electroencephalography to observe the cognitive activity of essay writers who had access to AI, Google, or nothing. Those who could rely on AI displayed the least brain activity and had trouble accurately recalling their own work. Perhaps most concerning was that over time, individuals in the AI group became progressively lazier, copying large sections of text.

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

Of course, AI's attraction lies in its convenience. It saves time, minimizes work 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 understood by a human tendency to surrender personal freedom in for the sake of the comforting security of subordination. AI offers a digital avenue for surrendering the weight of having to think and choose.

The Black Box Problem: Faith Over Reason

AI's primary draw is its ability to accomplish things outside human capability – sifting through oceans of data at unprecedented speed. Sitting in the car in Marseille, this was, ultimately, why I chose to trust the app over my friend (a decision she took as an affront). With knowledge of real-time information, certainly the app had superior insight – or so I believed.

The fundamental problem is that AI operates as a black box. It generates answers, but not always fostering human understanding. We cannot fully grasp the process behind its conclusions – including its creators admit this. Nor can we check its logic against transparent standards. So when we heed AI's recommendation, we are not being guided by reason. We are returning to the domain of faith. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, trust the machine – that could be our 21st-century guiding principle.

Harnessing Without Eroding: The Critical Balance

AI can be a formidable ally for humanity in scientific pursuit. It can help medical research, free us from "bullshit jobs", or handle administrative chores – duties that demand little thought and are unfulfilling. All to the good. But Kant and his peers did not advocate for reason over faith just so humans could optimize chores or have more leisure. Independent thought was not merely about productivity – it was a discipline of freedom and human self-determination.

Human thought is often chaotic and error-prone, 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 collectively. For Kant, the use of reason was never only about acquiring knowledge; it was about enabling people to become authors of their own lives, and to resist domination. It was about building a moral community grounded in the shared principle of reason and debate, rather than blind belief.

With all the undeniable benefits AI offers, the paramount challenge remains: how can we leverage its promise of superhuman intelligence without undermining human reasoning, the bedrock of the Enlightenment and of free societies themselves? That may be one of the central dilemmas of our century. It is a question we would do well not to outsource to the algorithm.