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This recent season, I found myself navigating in congested traffic on the sweltering streets of a southern French city. At an intersection, my companion in the passenger seat advised a right turn toward a famous spot for bouillabaisse. Yet, the digital guide on my phone commanded us to go forward. Fatigued and overheated, I heeded the app's directive. Moments later, we were stranded at a construction site.

A seemingly trivial incident, perhaps. But one that encapsulates a defining dilemma of our time, where technology touches almost every aspect of existence: who gets our trust more – fellow humans and our personal instincts, or the machine?

A Call for Intellectual Maturity and A Contemporary Backslide

The influential German philosopher Immanuel Kant famously described the Enlightenment as "man's release from its self-imposed nonage." This state, he argued, "is the incapacity to use one's personal reason without direction from an external source." For centuries, that directing force for human thought was frequently the clergyman, the monarch, or the feudal lord – figures claiming to speak for divine will. To explain phenomena like changing seasons, people sought answers in theology. In shaping the fabric of society, from commerce to matters of the heart, faith acted as the primary guide.

“Sapere aude!” or “Dare to use your reason!”

Kant maintained that humans always possessed the capacity for reason. They simply lacked the boldness to employ it. With upheavals in the 18th century, a new dawn emerged: logic would supplant superstition, and the human mind, freed from authority, would become the engine of advancement 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 merely the start. Artificial intelligence risks becoming our contemporary authority – a silent overseer that influences our decisions and behaviors. We risk relinquishing the hard-won courage to think independently – and now, not to deities or rulers, but to lines of code.

The Swift Adoption and Hidden Risks of Algorithmic Reliance

ChatGPT was launched only in 2022, and yet a recent study found that an vast number of people had used AI in the previous six months. Whether deciding on ending a relationship or choosing a candidate, individuals are looking to machines for guidance. Data suggests a significant portion of user prompts relate to non-work topics. Even more striking than our reliance on AI for judgment is what occurs when we let it speak for us. Writing is now one of the top uses for tools like ChatGPT, second only to everyday tasks. The celebrated American author Joan Didion once remarked, “I write entirely to discover what I am thinking.” What occurs when we stop composing? Do we cease discovering?

Alarmingly, emerging research suggests the answer may be yes. A study conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used electroencephalography to observe the mental engagement of essay writers who had access to AI, traditional search engines, or no aids. Those who could use AI showed the least brain activity and had trouble quoting their own work. Perhaps most concerning was that over time, participants in the AI group grew increasingly reliant, copying large sections of text.

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

Of course, AI's appeal stems from its efficiency. It saves time, reduces effort and – importantly – offers a new method to offload responsibility. 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 give up personal freedom in exchange for the reassuring certainty of obedience. AI presents a digital avenue for surrendering the weight of having to think and choose.

The Opacity Dilemma: Faith Over Reason

AI's greatest allure is its capacity to accomplish things beyond our minds – analyzing vast datasets at lightning pace. Stuck in the car in Marseille, this was, ultimately, why I opted to trust the app over my friend (a choice she took as an insult). With knowledge of all the data, certainly the algorithm had superior insight – or so I thought.

The fundamental problem is that AI is a opaque system. It produces answers, but not always deepening human understanding. We do not truly know how AI reaches its decisions – including its programmers acknowledge the opacity. Nor can we check its logic against transparent standards. So when we heed AI's recommendation, we are not being guided by reason. We are back in the domain of faith. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, trust the machine – that could be our 21st-century guiding principle.

Harnessing Without Eroding: The Essential Challenge

AI can be a formidable ally for mankind in rational inquiry. It can help inventing drugs, liberate us from "bullshit jobs", or manage taxes – duties that are repetitive and are unfulfilling. This is beneficial. But Kant and his contemporaries did not champion enlightenment just so humans could optimize chores or have more leisure. Critical thinking was not just about efficiency – it was a discipline of liberty and human emancipation.

Human thought is often chaotic and error-prone, but it forces us to argue, to question, to challenge concepts – and to recognize the limits of our own understanding. It fosters confidence, both individually and collectively. For Kant, the exercise of reason was never solely about information; it was about empowering people to become agents of their own destinies, and to resist domination. It was about building a ethical society grounded in the shared principle of rational discourse, rather than unquestioning acceptance.

With all the undeniable benefits AI brings, the key question is this: how can we harness its potential of superhuman intelligence without eroding human reasoning, the cornerstone of the Enlightenment and of liberal democracy itself? That is likely one of the central dilemmas of our time. It is a question we would do well not to delegate to the machine.