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This recent season, I found myself navigating in gridlocked 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 bouillabaisse. Yet, the navigation app on my phone commanded us to continue straight. Fatigued and in a stifling car, I followed the algorithm's directive. Minutes later, we were stuck at a roadwork site.

A minor event, maybe. But one that encapsulates a central dilemma of our era, where digital tools touches almost every aspect of existence: who gets our trust to a greater degree – other people and our own intuition, or the machine?

A Call for Intellectual Maturity and A Contemporary Backslide

The renowned German philosopher Immanuel Kant once defined the Enlightenment as "humanity's emergence from its self-imposed nonage." This immaturity, he argued, "is the incapacity to use one's personal reason without direction from an external source." For centuries, that directing force for society was often the priest, the king, or the feudal lord – entities purporting to channel divine will. To explain phenomena like volcanic eruptions, people sought answers in religion. In shaping the fabric of society, from economics to matters of the heart, religious doctrine acted as the main compass.

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

Kant argued that humans always possessed the ability to think rationally. They just didn't have the confidence to use it. With upheavals in the 18th century, a new dawn arrived: reason would replace blind faith, and the human mind, liberated from authority, would become the driver of progress and a more ethical world.

Now, 250 years later, one might wonder if we are slipping back into a form of dependency. An app dictating a direction is just one example. Artificial intelligence threatens to become our contemporary authority – a unseen overseer that influences our decisions and behaviors. We are in danger of ceding the hard-won autonomy to think independently – and now, not to deities or rulers, but to lines of code.

The Rapid Rise and Subtle Dangers of AI Dependence

ChatGPT debuted a mere three years ago, and yet a recent study indicated 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 looking to machines for guidance. Data suggests a large majority of user prompts relate to non-work topics. Even more intriguing than our use of AI for judgment is what occurs when we allow it speak for us. Composition is now among the most common uses for tools like ChatGPT, second only to everyday tasks. The celebrated American author Joan Didion once remarked, “I write entirely to find out what I am thinking.” What occurs when we stop composing? Do we cease discovering?

Worryingly, emerging research hints the outcome may be affirmative. A study conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used electroencephalography to track the cognitive activity of participants who had could use AI, Google, or no aids. Those who could rely on AI showed the lowest cognitive engagement and had difficulty quoting their own work. Maybe most concerning was that after a few months, individuals in the AI group grew increasingly reliant, pasting entire blocks of text.

“Laziness and cowardice,” Kant wrote, “are the reasons why so many of men … stay in lifelong immaturity.”

Certainly, AI's appeal stems from its efficiency. It is fast, reduces effort and – critically – offers a new method to abdicate accountability. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm argued that the appeal of authoritarianism could be partly explained by a human tendency to give up personal freedom in for the sake of the comforting security of subordination. AI offers a modern avenue for surrendering the burden of having to decide for oneself.

The Black Box Problem: Faith Over Reason

AI's primary draw is its ability to perform tasks outside our minds – sifting through oceans of data at unprecedented speed. Stuck in the car in Marseille, this was, after all, why I chose to trust the machine over my companion (a choice she took as an affront). With access to real-time information, certainly the app had superior insight – or so I thought.

The core issue is that AI operates as a opaque system. It generates knowledge, but without necessarily deepening human understanding. We do not truly know the process behind its conclusions – even its creators acknowledge the opacity. Nor can we check its reasoning against clear, objective criteria. So when we heed AI's recommendation, we are not being led by logic. We are back in the realm of belief. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, trust the machine – that could be our future guiding principle.

Harnessing Without Eroding: The Critical Balance

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. All to the good. But Kant and his peers did not advocate for reason over faith just so humans could optimize chores or have more leisure. Independent thought was not just about productivity – it was a practice of freedom and human self-determination.

Human thought is inherently messy and error-prone, but it compels us to argue, to question, to challenge concepts – and to recognize the limits of our own knowledge. It builds confidence, 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 destinies, and to resist domination. It was about creating a moral community grounded in the shared principle of reason and debate, rather than unquestioning acceptance.

With all the undeniable benefits AI brings, the paramount challenge is this: how can we leverage its potential of advanced capability without undermining human rationality, the cornerstone of the Enlightenment and of liberal democracy themselves? That is likely one of the central dilemmas of our century. It is a question we would do well not to delegate to the machine.