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This past summer, I found myself navigating in congested traffic on the scorching streets of Marseille. At an intersection, my friend in the passenger seat advised a right turn toward a famous spot for fish soup. However, the digital guide on my phone instructed us to continue straight. Weary and in a stifling car, I followed the algorithm's directive. Moments later, we were stranded at a construction site.

A seemingly trivial 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 to a greater degree – fellow humans and our personal instincts, or the algorithm?

The Enlightenment's Promise and A Contemporary Backslide

The renowned German philosopher Immanuel Kant once defined the Enlightenment as "man's release from its self-inflicted immaturity." This state, he wrote, "represents the incapacity to use one's personal reason without guidance from another." For centuries, that guiding "other" for society was often the clergyman, the monarch, or the landowner – figures purporting to channel divine will. To comprehend phenomena like changing seasons, people looked for explanations in theology. In shaping the social world, from commerce to matters of the heart, religious doctrine served as the main compass.

“Sapere aude!” or “Have courage to use your reason!”

Kant argued that humans had the ability to think rationally. They just didn't have the confidence to employ it. With revolutions in America and France, a fresh era arrived: reason would replace blind faith, and the human mind, freed from dogma, would become the driver of progress and a better world.

Now, 250 years later, one might wonder if we are slipping back into a state of dependency. An app suggesting a direction is merely the start. AI risks becoming our new "other" – a unseen overseer that steers our decisions and behaviors. We are in danger of ceding the hard-won courage to think independently – and now, not to gods or kings, but to computer programs.

The Rapid Rise and Hidden Risks of AI Dependence

ChatGPT was launched a mere three years ago, and yet a recent study indicated that an vast number of people had used AI in the preceding half-year. Whether contemplating a breakup or choosing a candidate, individuals are looking to machines for guidance. Data suggests a significant portion of user prompts concern non-work topics. Even more intriguing than our use of AI for advice 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 practical requests. The celebrated American author Joan Didion once remarked, “I write purely to find out what I am thinking.” What transpires when we cease writing? Do we lose that path?

Alarmingly, emerging research suggests the outcome may be yes. A study conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used brain monitoring to observe the cognitive activity of participants who had could use AI, Google, or nothing. Those who could use AI showed the lowest cognitive engagement and had difficulty accurately recalling their own work. Perhaps most concerning was that over time, individuals in the AI group grew progressively lazier, copying entire blocks of text.

“Inertia and fear,” Kant wrote, “are the reasons why so great a proportion of men … remain in perpetual nonage.”

Of course, AI's appeal lies in its convenience. It saves time, minimizes work and – critically – offers a new method to abdicate accountability. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm proposed that the rise of fascism could be understood by a preference to surrender autonomy in for the sake of the reassuring certainty of obedience. AI offers a modern avenue for relinquishing the burden of having to decide for oneself.

The Black Box Problem: Faith Over Reason

AI's greatest allure is its ability to accomplish things beyond human capability – analyzing oceans of data at unprecedented speed. Stuck in the car in Marseille, this was, ultimately, why I opted to believe the app over my companion (a choice she took as an insult). With access to all the data, surely the algorithm must know best – or so I believed.

The fundamental problem is that AI operates as a opaque system. It generates knowledge, but not always deepening human comprehension. We do not truly know how AI reaches its decisions – even 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 domain of faith. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, side with the machine – that could be our 21st-century credo.

Using Without Losing: The Critical Balance

AI can be a powerful tool for mankind in rational inquiry. It can aid in inventing drugs, free us from "bullshit jobs", or manage taxes – duties that are repetitive and offer little satisfaction. This is beneficial. But Kant and his contemporaries did not champion enlightenment just so humans could assemble better furniture or have more leisure. Critical thinking was not just about productivity – it was a discipline of liberty and human self-determination.

Human thought is inherently messy and error-prone, but it forces us to argue, to question, to test ideas – and to recognize the limits of our own knowledge. It fosters confidence, both individually and as a society. For Kant, the exercise of reason was never solely about acquiring knowledge; it was about enabling people to become authors of their own lives, and to oppose control. It was about building a moral community based on the shared principle of reason and debate, rather than unquestioning acceptance.

With all the undeniable benefits AI offers, the key question remains: how can we harness its promise of advanced capability without eroding human rationality, the bedrock of the Enlightenment and of free societies itself? That is likely one of the defining questions of our century. It is a question we would do well not to outsource to the machine.