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This past summer, I found myself navigating in gridlocked traffic on the scorching streets of Marseille. At an intersection, my friend in the front seat suggested a right turn toward a renowned spot for bouillabaisse. However, the navigation app on my phone instructed us to continue straight. Weary and in a stifling car, I heeded the app's advice. Minutes later, we were stuck at a construction site.

A seemingly trivial incident, maybe. But one that captures a central question 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-imposed nonage." This state, he wrote, "is the inability to use one's own understanding without direction from another." For ages, that guiding "other" for society was often the priest, the king, or the feudal lord – entities claiming to channel divine will. To comprehend natural events like volcanic eruptions, people looked for explanations in theology. In shaping the fabric of society, from commerce to matters of the heart, faith acted as the main compass.

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

Kant argued that humans had the ability to think rationally. They simply lacked the boldness to employ it. With revolutions in the 18th century, a fresh era emerged: logic would replace superstition, and the human mind, liberated from authority, would become the driver of progress and a better world.

Today, two and a half centuries later, one might wonder if we are quietly regressing into a state of intellectual immaturity. An app dictating a driving route is merely the start. AI threatens to become our new "other" – a unseen guide that influences our decisions and actions. We are in danger of relinquishing the historically earned autonomy to reason for ourselves – and this time, not to gods or kings, but to computer programs.

The Swift Adoption and Hidden Risks of Algorithmic Reliance

ChatGPT was launched a mere three years ago, and yet a recent study found that an overwhelming majority of respondents had engaged with artificial intelligence in the preceding half-year. Whether contemplating ending a relationship or choosing a candidate, individuals are looking to machines for guidance. Data 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 express for us. Writing is now among the top uses for tools like ChatGPT, second only to everyday tasks. The celebrated American author Joan Didion famously said, “I write purely to find out what I am thinking.” What transpires when we stop composing? Do we cease discovering?

Worryingly, emerging research suggests the answer may be affirmative. A study conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used electroencephalography to observe the mental engagement of participants who had could use AI, traditional search engines, or nothing. Those who could use AI displayed the lowest brain activity and had trouble quoting their own work. Maybe most troubling was that over time, participants in the AI group grew increasingly reliant, copying entire blocks of text.

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

Of course, AI's attraction lies in its convenience. It is fast, minimizes work and – importantly – offers a novel way to abdicate responsibility. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm argued that the appeal of authoritarianism could be partly explained by a preference to give up personal freedom in exchange for the comforting security of subordination. AI presents a digital avenue for surrendering the burden of having to decide for oneself.

The Opacity Dilemma: Trust Without Understanding

AI's greatest allure is its capacity to perform tasks outside our minds – analyzing vast datasets at unprecedented speed. Stuck in the car in Marseille, this was, after all, why I opted to believe the machine over my companion (a choice she interpreted as an insult). With access to real-time information, certainly the app had superior insight – or so I thought.

The fundamental problem is that AI operates as a black box. It produces knowledge, but without necessarily deepening human comprehension. We do not truly know the process behind its conclusions – including its creators admit this. Nor can we check its logic against clear, objective criteria. So when we follow AI's advice, 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 may become our future guiding principle.

Using Without Losing: The Essential Challenge

AI can be a formidable ally for humanity in rational inquiry. It can aid in inventing drugs, liberate us from tedious tasks, or handle administrative chores – duties that demand little thought and are unfulfilling. All to the good. But Kant and his contemporaries did not advocate for reason over faith just so humans could assemble better furniture or have more leisure. Critical thinking was not merely about productivity – it was a discipline of freedom and human emancipation.

Human thought is often chaotic and error-prone, but it compels us to debate, to question, to test ideas – and to recognize the boundaries of our own knowledge. It builds self-reliance, both personally and collectively. 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 resist control. It was about building a moral community grounded in the shared principle of rational discourse, rather than unquestioning acceptance.

With all the undeniable benefits AI brings, the paramount challenge is this: how can we leverage its promise of superhuman intelligence without eroding human rationality, the cornerstone of the Enlightenment and of liberal democracy themselves? That is likely one of the defining questions of our time. It is a question we would do well not to delegate to the machine.