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This recent season, I was caught in congested traffic on the sweltering streets of Marseille. At an intersection, my friend in the front seat suggested a right turn toward a famous spot for fish soup. However, the digital guide on my phone commanded us to go forward. Fatigued and in a stifling car, I heeded the app's directive. Moments later, we were stranded at a roadwork site.

A minor event, maybe. But one that captures a defining dilemma of our era, where digital tools touches almost every aspect of our lives: whom do we trust more – fellow humans and our personal instincts, or the algorithm?

A Call for Intellectual Maturity and Our Modern Relapse

The influential German philosopher Immanuel Kant famously described the Enlightenment as "humanity's emergence from its self-inflicted nonage." This immaturity, he argued, "is the incapacity to use one's own understanding without direction from an external source." For ages, that directing force for human thought was frequently the priest, the monarch, or the landowner – entities claiming to speak for God's voice. To explain natural events like changing seasons, people sought answers in theology. In shaping the social world, from economics to matters of the heart, religious doctrine acted as the main compass.

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

Kant maintained that humans always possessed the ability to think rationally. They simply lacked the confidence to use it. With upheavals in America and France, a new dawn arrived: logic would replace superstition, and the human mind, liberated from authority, would become the engine of advancement and a more ethical world.

Now, two and a half centuries later, one might question if we are quietly regressing into a state of intellectual immaturity. An app dictating a direction is just one example. AI risks becoming our new "other" – a unseen overseer that steers our choices and actions. We risk relinquishing the historically earned autonomy to reason for ourselves – and this time, not to gods or kings, but to computer programs.

The Rapid Rise and Hidden Risks of Algorithmic Reliance

ChatGPT was launched only in 2022, and already a global survey found that an overwhelming majority of respondents had used AI in the previous six months. Whether contemplating ending a relationship or choosing a candidate, individuals are increasingly turning to algorithms for guidance. Data suggests a significant portion of user queries relate to personal life matters. Even more intriguing than our use of AI for advice is what happens when we let it speak for us. Writing is now among the top uses for generative AI, second only to everyday tasks. The late American author Joan Didion once remarked, “I write entirely to find out what I am thinking.” What occurs when we cease writing? Do we cease discovering?

Worryingly, some evidence hints the outcome may be yes. A study conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used brain monitoring to track the mental engagement of participants who had could use AI, Google, or nothing. Those who could use AI showed the lowest cognitive engagement and had trouble accurately recalling their own work. Maybe most concerning was that over time, individuals in the AI group grew increasingly reliant, pasting large sections of text.

“Inertia and fear,” Kant wrote, “are the reasons why so many of men … stay in perpetual nonage.”

Of course, AI's attraction stems from its efficiency. It is fast, minimizes work and – importantly – offers a novel way to abdicate accountability. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm proposed that the appeal of authoritarianism could be partly explained by a preference to surrender autonomy in for the sake of the comforting security of obedience. AI offers a digital method of relinquishing the burden of having to decide for oneself.

The Opacity Dilemma: Trust Without Understanding

AI's primary draw is its capacity to perform tasks outside human capability – analyzing vast datasets at unprecedented speed. Sitting in the car in Marseille, this was, after all, why I opted to trust the app over my friend (a choice she took as an affront). With access to all the data, surely the algorithm had superior insight – or so I thought.

The core issue is that AI operates as a opaque system. It produces knowledge, but not always deepening human understanding. We do not truly know how AI reaches its decisions – including its creators acknowledge the opacity. Nor can we verify its reasoning against transparent standards. So when we follow AI's advice, we are not being led by logic. We are back in the realm of belief. 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 inventing drugs, free us from tedious tasks, or manage taxes – duties that are repetitive and are unfulfilling. All to the good. But Kant and his peers did not champion enlightenment just so humans could optimize chores or have extra free time. 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 acknowledge the boundaries of our own understanding. It builds self-reliance, both individually and collectively. For Kant, the use of reason was never solely about acquiring knowledge; it was about enabling people to become agents 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 brings, the key question remains: how can we leverage its promise of superhuman intelligence without eroding human rationality, the cornerstone of the Enlightenment and of free societies itself? That is likely one of the central dilemmas of our time. It is a question we would do well not to outsource to the machine.