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This recent season, I was caught in congested traffic on the scorching streets of Marseille. At an intersection, my companion in the front seat advised a right turn toward a famous spot for fish soup. However, the navigation app on my phone instructed us to go forward. Fatigued and in a stifling car, I followed the app's directive. Minutes later, we were stuck at a roadwork site.

A seemingly trivial event, maybe. But one that captures a defining dilemma of our time, where digital tools permeates nearly every facet of existence: whom do we trust more – other people and our personal instincts, or the machine?

The Enlightenment's Promise and Our Modern Relapse

The influential German philosopher Immanuel Kant famously described the Enlightenment as "man's release from its self-inflicted immaturity." 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 – figures claiming to speak for divine will. To comprehend 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 own understanding!”

Kant maintained that humans always possessed the capacity for reason. They simply lacked the confidence to use it. With revolutions in the 18th century, a fresh era emerged: logic would replace blind faith, and the intellect, liberated from dogma, would become the driver of advancement and a better world.

Now, two and a half centuries later, one might question if we are slipping back into a state of intellectual immaturity. An app dictating a driving route is just one example. AI threatens to become our new "other" – a unseen guide that steers our choices and actions. We risk relinquishing the hard-won courage to reason for ourselves – and this time, not to deities or rulers, but to lines of code.

The Rapid Rise and Hidden Risks of Algorithmic Reliance

ChatGPT debuted only in 2022, and already a global survey indicated that an vast number of people had used AI in the preceding half-year. Whether contemplating ending a relationship or choosing a candidate, individuals are increasingly turning to machines for counsel. Research suggests a large majority of user prompts relate to personal life matters. Even more intriguing than our reliance on AI for judgment is what happens when we let it express for us. Writing is now among the most common uses for generative AI, second only to everyday tasks. The celebrated American author Joan Didion once remarked, “I write purely to find out what I am thinking.” What transpires when we cease writing? Do we cease discovering?

Alarmingly, emerging research hints the outcome may be yes. A study conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used electroencephalography to observe the cognitive activity of participants who had could use AI, traditional search engines, or no aids. Those who could rely on AI displayed the lowest brain activity and had difficulty quoting their own work. Maybe 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 lifelong immaturity.”

Certainly, AI's attraction lies in its efficiency. It saves time, reduces effort and – importantly – offers a new method to offload responsibility. 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 exchange for the reassuring certainty of subordination. AI offers a digital avenue for relinquishing the weight of having to decide for oneself.

The Opacity Dilemma: Faith Over Reason

AI's primary draw is its ability to perform tasks beyond human capability – analyzing vast datasets at unprecedented speed. Sitting in the car in Marseille, this was, ultimately, why I chose to believe the app over my friend (a decision she interpreted as an insult). With knowledge of all the data, surely the app had superior insight – or so I thought.

The core issue is that AI is a opaque system. It generates answers, but without necessarily deepening human understanding. We cannot fully grasp how AI reaches its conclusions – including its creators admit this. Nor can we check its logic against clear, objective criteria. So when we heed AI's recommendation, we are not being guided by reason. We are returning to the domain of belief. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, side with the machine – that may become our 21st-century guiding principle.

Harnessing Without Eroding: The Essential Challenge

AI can be a formidable ally for humanity in scientific pursuit. It can aid in inventing drugs, liberate us from "bullshit jobs", or manage administrative chores – duties that demand little thought and are unfulfilling. This is beneficial. But Kant and his contemporaries did not champion enlightenment just so humans could optimize chores or have more leisure. Independent thought was not just about efficiency – it was a discipline of liberty and human emancipation.

Human thought is often chaotic and error-prone, but it compels us to debate, to doubt, to challenge concepts – and to acknowledge the boundaries of our own knowledge. It builds confidence, both individually and collectively. For Kant, the exercise of reason was never solely about information; it was about empowering 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 blind belief.

With all the undeniable benefits AI offers, the key question is this: how can we leverage its potential of advanced capability without undermining human rationality, the cornerstone of the Enlightenment and of liberal democracy itself? That is likely one of the central dilemmas of our time. It is a question we must strive not to delegate to the algorithm.