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This past summer, I was caught in congested traffic on the sweltering streets of Marseille. At a crossing, my companion in the front seat suggested a right turn toward a famous spot for fish soup. However, the digital guide on my phone instructed us to go forward. Fatigued and overheated, I followed the app's directive. Moments later, we were stuck at a construction site.

A seemingly trivial incident, perhaps. But one that encapsulates a defining question of our era, where technology touches nearly every facet of existence: whom do we trust to a greater degree – other people and our personal instincts, or the machine?

The Enlightenment's Promise and A Contemporary Backslide

The influential German philosopher Immanuel Kant famously described 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 direction from another." For ages, that guiding "other" for society was frequently the clergyman, the monarch, or the feudal lord – figures purporting to channel divine will. To comprehend phenomena like volcanic eruptions, people looked for explanations in religion. In shaping the fabric of society, from economics to love, religious doctrine served as the main compass.

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

Kant argued that humans had the ability to think rationally. They just didn't have the boldness to use it. With upheavals in the 18th century, a new dawn arrived: logic would supplant blind faith, and the intellect, freed from dogma, would become the engine of advancement and a more ethical world.

Today, two and a half centuries later, one might question if we are slipping back into a form of intellectual immaturity. An app suggesting a direction is merely the start. Artificial intelligence risks becoming our new "other" – a silent overseer that steers our decisions and behaviors. We are in danger of ceding the historically earned autonomy to think independently – and now, not to gods or kings, but to computer programs.

The Rapid Rise and Subtle Dangers of AI Dependence

ChatGPT debuted only in 2022, and yet a global survey found that an vast number of people had used AI in the preceding half-year. Whether deciding on a breakup or selecting a vote, individuals are looking to algorithms for guidance. Research suggests a significant portion of user prompts relate to personal life matters. Even more intriguing than our reliance on AI for advice is what occurs when we let it express for us. Composition is now one of the top uses for tools like ChatGPT, just behind everyday tasks. The late American author Joan Didion once remarked, “I write purely to find out what I am thinking.” What transpires when we stop composing? Do we lose that path?

Worryingly, emerging research hints 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 nothing. Those who could rely on AI showed the lowest brain activity and had difficulty accurately recalling their own work. Maybe most troubling was that over time, individuals in the AI group grew increasingly reliant, copying entire blocks of text.

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

Certainly, AI's attraction stems from its efficiency. It is fast, 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 partly explained by a preference to give up personal freedom in for the sake of the reassuring certainty of subordination. AI presents a digital method of relinquishing the weight of having to decide for oneself.

The Opacity Dilemma: Faith Over Reason

AI's primary draw is its capacity to accomplish things beyond our minds – analyzing oceans of data at unprecedented speed. Stuck in the car in Marseille, this was, after all, why I chose to believe the app over my companion (a choice she took as an insult). With access to all the data, surely the algorithm had superior insight – or so I believed.

The core issue is that AI operates as a black box. It produces answers, but not always deepening human understanding. We cannot fully grasp the process behind its conclusions – even its creators acknowledge the opacity. Nor can we check its logic against transparent standards. So when we heed AI's recommendation, we are not being led by logic. We are back in the domain of faith. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, side with the machine – that may become our future credo.

Using Without Losing: The Essential Challenge

AI can be a formidable ally for mankind in rational inquiry. It can help medical research, liberate us from "bullshit jobs", or manage administrative chores – work that demand little thought and are unfulfilling. This is beneficial. But Kant and his peers did not advocate for enlightenment just so humans could assemble better furniture or have more leisure. Critical thinking was not merely about efficiency – it was a practice 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 knowledge. It builds self-reliance, both individually and as a society. For Kant, the use of reason was never only about information; it was about empowering people to become authors of their own destinies, and to resist control. It was about building a moral community based on the shared principle of rational discourse, rather than unquestioning acceptance.

With all the undeniable benefits AI brings, the key question remains: how can we harness its potential of advanced capability without eroding human reasoning, the bedrock of the Enlightenment and of liberal democracy itself? That is likely one of the defining questions of our century. It is a question we would do well not to delegate to the algorithm.