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This recent season, I was caught in gridlocked traffic on the scorching streets of Marseille. At an intersection, my friend in the front seat advised a right turn toward a renowned spot for bouillabaisse. However, the navigation app on my phone instructed us to continue straight. Fatigued and in a stifling car, I followed the algorithm's directive. Minutes later, we were stuck at a construction site.

A minor event, maybe. But one that encapsulates a defining dilemma of our era, where digital tools permeates nearly every facet of existence: whom do we trust more – fellow humans and our personal instincts, or the machine?

The Enlightenment's Promise and A Contemporary Backslide

The influential German philosopher Immanuel Kant once defined the Enlightenment as "man's release from its self-imposed immaturity." This state, he argued, "is the incapacity to use one's personal reason without guidance from another." For ages, that guiding "other" for human thought was frequently the priest, the monarch, or the landowner – entities purporting to speak for God's voice. To comprehend natural events like volcanic eruptions, people looked for explanations in theology. In shaping the social world, from commerce to love, religious doctrine served as the primary guide.

“Sapere aude!” or “Dare to use your own understanding!”

Kant maintained that humans had the ability to think rationally. They just didn't have the confidence to employ it. With upheavals in America and France, a new dawn emerged: logic would replace blind faith, and the intellect, liberated from authority, would become the engine of advancement and a better world.

Now, two and a half centuries later, one might question if we are slipping back into a form of dependency. An app dictating a direction is just one example. Artificial intelligence risks becoming our contemporary authority – a silent overseer that influences our decisions and actions. We risk relinquishing the hard-won courage to reason for ourselves – and this time, not to gods or kings, but to lines of code.

The Swift Adoption and Subtle Dangers of Algorithmic Reliance

ChatGPT debuted a mere three years ago, and yet a global survey found that an overwhelming majority of people had used AI in the preceding half-year. Whether deciding on ending a relationship or choosing a candidate, individuals are looking to machines for guidance. Research suggests a large majority of user prompts concern personal life matters. Even more striking than our reliance on AI for judgment is what happens when we let it speak for us. Writing is now one of the top uses for generative AI, second only to everyday tasks. The late American author Joan Didion famously said, “I write purely to discover what I am thinking.” What occurs when we cease writing? Do we lose that path?

Alarmingly, emerging research suggests the answer may be affirmative. 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 no aids. Those who could rely on AI displayed the lowest cognitive engagement and had difficulty accurately recalling their own work. Perhaps most concerning 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 great a proportion of men … remain in lifelong immaturity.”

Certainly, AI's appeal stems from its convenience. It saves time, reduces effort and – critically – offers a novel way to offload 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 give up personal freedom in for the sake of the comforting security of subordination. AI presents a modern avenue for relinquishing the burden of having to decide for oneself.

The Opacity Dilemma: Faith Over Reason

AI's greatest allure is its capacity to perform tasks outside human capability – analyzing oceans of data at unprecedented speed. Stuck in the car in Marseille, this was, after all, why I opted to believe the machine over my friend (a choice she interpreted as an affront). With knowledge of all the data, surely the algorithm had superior insight – or so I thought.

The core issue is that AI is a black box. It generates knowledge, but not always fostering human comprehension. We do not truly know the process behind its decisions – even its creators admit this. Nor can we verify its reasoning against clear, objective criteria. So when we follow AI's advice, 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 future credo.

Harnessing Without Eroding: The Critical Balance

AI can be a formidable ally for humanity in scientific pursuit. It can aid in medical research, liberate us from "bullshit jobs", or manage taxes – work that are repetitive and offer little satisfaction. This is beneficial. But Kant and his peers did not champion enlightenment 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 inherently messy and fallible, but it compels us to argue, to doubt, to challenge concepts – and to recognize the limits of our own knowledge. It fosters confidence, both personally 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 building a ethical society based on the common foundation of rational discourse, rather than unquestioning acceptance.

With all the undeniable benefits AI offers, the paramount challenge is this: how can we leverage its promise of superhuman intelligence without eroding human reasoning, the cornerstone of the Enlightenment and of liberal democracy itself? That may be one of the central dilemmas of our century. It is a question we must strive not to delegate to the machine.