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This recent season, I was caught in congested traffic on the sweltering streets of a southern French city. At an intersection, my companion in the front seat suggested a right turn toward a renowned spot for fish soup. However, the digital guide on my phone commanded us to go forward. Fatigued and in a stifling car, I followed the app's directive. Moments later, we were stuck at a construction site.

A seemingly trivial event, maybe. But one that captures a defining dilemma of our era, where technology touches almost every aspect of existence: 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 "man's release from its self-imposed immaturity." This immaturity, he wrote, "is the incapacity to use one's personal reason without direction from another." For centuries, that guiding "other" for society was often the clergyman, the king, or the landowner – figures claiming to channel divine will. To explain natural events like changing seasons, people sought answers in religion. In organizing the fabric of society, from commerce to matters of the heart, religious doctrine served as the main compass.

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

Kant maintained that humans always possessed the capacity for reason. They just didn't have the confidence to use it. With revolutions in America and France, a fresh era emerged: reason would replace superstition, and the human mind, liberated from authority, would become the engine of advancement and a more ethical world.

Today, two and a half centuries later, one might wonder if we are quietly regressing into a form of dependency. An app suggesting a direction is just one example. Artificial intelligence threatens to become our new "other" – a unseen guide that influences our choices and behaviors. We risk relinquishing the historically earned autonomy to think independently – and this time, not to gods or kings, but to lines of code.

The Swift Adoption and Hidden Risks of AI Dependence

ChatGPT debuted a mere three years ago, and already a recent study found that an overwhelming majority of people had engaged with artificial intelligence in the preceding half-year. Whether contemplating a breakup or choosing a candidate, individuals are looking to algorithms for guidance. Data suggests a large majority of user queries concern personal life matters. Even more striking than our reliance on AI for advice is what occurs when we let it express for us. Writing is now among the top uses for tools like ChatGPT, just behind everyday tasks. The late American author Joan Didion once remarked, “I write entirely to discover what I am thinking.” What transpires when we stop composing? Do we cease discovering?

Alarmingly, some evidence suggests the outcome may be yes. A study conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used electroencephalography to observe the cognitive activity of participants who had access to AI, traditional search engines, or no aids. Those who could rely on AI displayed the least brain activity and had difficulty accurately recalling their own work. Perhaps most concerning was that after a few months, participants in the AI group became progressively lazier, copying entire blocks of text.

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

Certainly, AI's appeal stems from its efficiency. It is fast, reduces effort and – critically – offers a new method to abdicate responsibility. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm proposed that the rise of fascism could be partly explained by a preference to give up autonomy in exchange for the reassuring certainty of subordination. AI presents a digital avenue for relinquishing the weight of having to think and choose.

The Black Box Problem: Trust Without Understanding

AI's primary draw is its capacity to accomplish things beyond our minds – sifting through oceans of data 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 interpreted as an insult). With knowledge of real-time information, certainly the algorithm had superior insight – or so I thought.

The fundamental problem is that AI is a black box. It produces answers, but without necessarily deepening human comprehension. We cannot fully grasp the process behind its decisions – even its creators acknowledge the opacity. Nor can we check its logic against clear, objective criteria. So when we heed AI's advice, 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 future guiding principle.

Harnessing Without Eroding: The Critical Balance

AI can be a powerful tool for mankind in rational inquiry. It can aid in inventing drugs, liberate us from tedious tasks, or handle taxes – 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 merely about productivity – it was a discipline of liberty and human emancipation.

Human thought is inherently messy and fallible, but it compels us to debate, to question, to test ideas – and to acknowledge the boundaries of our own understanding. It builds confidence, both individually and as a society. For Kant, the use of reason was never only about information; it was about enabling people to become authors of their own lives, and to oppose control. It was about creating a moral community based on the common foundation of reason and debate, rather than blind belief.

With all the undeniable benefits AI brings, the key question is this: how can we harness its potential of superhuman intelligence without undermining human reasoning, the cornerstone of the Enlightenment and of liberal democracy themselves? That may be one of the defining questions of our century. It is a question we would do well not to delegate to the machine.