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This past summer, I was caught in congested traffic on the sweltering streets of a southern French city. At an intersection, my friend in the front seat suggested a right turn toward a renowned spot for fish soup. However, the digital guide on my phone instructed us to go forward. Fatigued and overheated, I heeded the app's advice. Moments later, we were stranded at a construction site.

A seemingly trivial incident, perhaps. But one that captures a defining question of our era, where technology permeates almost every aspect of our lives: whom do we trust to a greater degree – other people and our personal instincts, or the machine?

The Enlightenment's Promise and Our Modern Relapse

The renowned German philosopher Immanuel Kant once defined the Enlightenment as "humanity's emergence from its self-imposed immaturity." This immaturity, he argued, "represents the inability to use one's own understanding without guidance from an external source." For centuries, that guiding "other" for society was frequently the clergyman, the king, or the feudal lord – figures purporting to speak for divine will. To comprehend phenomena like volcanic eruptions, people looked for explanations in theology. In shaping the social world, from economics to love, faith served as the main compass.

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

Kant argued that humans had the ability to think rationally. They simply lacked the confidence to employ it. With upheavals in the 18th century, a fresh era emerged: reason would supplant blind faith, and the human mind, freed from dogma, would become the engine of progress and a better world.

Now, 250 years later, one might question if we are slipping back into a form of intellectual immaturity. An app dictating a driving route is just one example. Artificial intelligence threatens to become our contemporary authority – a silent overseer that influences our decisions and actions. We risk ceding the hard-won autonomy to think independently – and now, not to gods or kings, but to computer programs.

The Swift Adoption and Hidden Risks of Algorithmic Reliance

ChatGPT was launched a mere three years ago, and already a recent study found that an overwhelming majority of people had used AI in the previous six months. Whether deciding on ending a relationship or choosing a candidate, individuals are increasingly turning to algorithms for counsel. Data suggests a large majority of user prompts relate to non-work topics. Even more intriguing than our reliance on AI for judgment is what occurs when we allow it speak for us. Writing is now among the most common uses for tools like ChatGPT, just behind practical requests. The late American author Joan Didion once remarked, “I write entirely 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 brain monitoring to track the cognitive activity of essay writers who had could use AI, traditional search engines, or nothing. Those who could rely on AI showed the lowest brain activity and had difficulty quoting their own work. Maybe most concerning was that over time, individuals in the AI group grew progressively lazier, copying large sections 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 lies in its efficiency. It saves time, minimizes work and – importantly – 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 human tendency to give up personal freedom in for the sake of the comforting security of obedience. AI presents a digital method of relinquishing the burden of having to think and choose.

The Opacity Dilemma: Trust Without Understanding

AI's greatest allure is its ability to accomplish things outside human capability – analyzing oceans of data at unprecedented speed. Sitting in the car in Marseille, this was, ultimately, why I chose to trust the machine over my companion (a decision she interpreted as an insult). With access to all the data, certainly the algorithm had superior insight – or so I believed.

The fundamental problem is that AI operates as a opaque system. It generates knowledge, but not always deepening human understanding. We do not truly know how AI reaches its decisions – even its creators admit this. Nor can we verify its logic against clear, objective criteria. So when we heed 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, trust the machine – that could be our future credo.

Using Without Losing: The Critical Balance

AI can be a powerful tool for humanity in scientific pursuit. It can aid in medical research, liberate us from "bullshit jobs", or manage administrative chores – duties that demand little thought and offer little satisfaction. This is beneficial. But Kant and his peers did not champion enlightenment just so humans could assemble better furniture or have more leisure. Critical thinking was not merely about efficiency – it was a discipline of freedom and human emancipation.

Human thought is inherently messy and error-prone, but it forces us to argue, to doubt, to test ideas – and to acknowledge the limits of our own understanding. It builds confidence, both individually and as a society. For Kant, the exercise of reason was never only about acquiring knowledge; it was about enabling people to become authors of their own destinies, and to oppose control. It was about building a ethical society 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 promise of superhuman intelligence without undermining human rationality, the cornerstone of the Enlightenment and of liberal democracy itself? That may be one of the defining questions of our century. It is a question we would do well not to outsource to the algorithm.