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This past summer, I found myself navigating in gridlocked traffic on the sweltering streets of a southern French city. At an intersection, my companion in the passenger seat suggested a right turn toward a renowned spot for fish soup. Yet, the digital guide on my phone instructed us to go forward. Weary and overheated, I heeded the algorithm's directive. Minutes later, we were stranded at a roadwork site.

A seemingly trivial event, perhaps. But one that encapsulates a defining dilemma of our time, where technology touches almost every aspect of our lives: whom do we trust to a greater degree – 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 "humanity's emergence from its self-imposed immaturity." This state, he wrote, "represents the inability to use one's personal reason without direction from an external source." For centuries, that directing force for society was often the clergyman, the king, or the feudal lord – entities purporting to speak for divine will. To comprehend natural events like changing seasons, people sought answers in theology. In organizing the fabric of society, from commerce to love, faith served as the primary guide.

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

Kant argued that humans always possessed the capacity for reason. They just didn't have the confidence to employ it. With upheavals in America and France, a new dawn arrived: reason would supplant blind faith, and the human mind, liberated from dogma, would become the driver of advancement and a more ethical world.

Today, 250 years later, one might question if we are slipping back into a state of dependency. An app suggesting a driving route is just one example. AI risks becoming our new "other" – a silent guide that steers our decisions and actions. We risk ceding the hard-won courage to reason for ourselves – and this time, not to gods or kings, but to lines of code.

The Swift Adoption and Subtle Dangers of Algorithmic Reliance

ChatGPT was launched only in 2022, and already a global survey found that an overwhelming majority of people had used AI in the preceding half-year. Whether deciding on a breakup or choosing a candidate, individuals are increasingly turning to algorithms for counsel. Research suggests a large majority of user queries concern personal life matters. Even more intriguing than our use of AI for judgment is what happens when we let it express for us. Writing is now one of the most common uses for generative AI, just behind everyday tasks. The late American author Joan Didion famously said, “I write entirely to discover what I am thinking.” What transpires when we cease writing? Do we lose that path?

Worryingly, some evidence hints the answer may be yes. A study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used brain monitoring to observe the cognitive activity of participants who had could use AI, traditional search engines, or no aids. Those who could use AI showed the lowest cognitive engagement and had trouble accurately recalling their own work. Perhaps most concerning was that over time, individuals in the AI group grew progressively lazier, copying large sections of text.

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

Certainly, AI's appeal stems from its convenience. It is fast, reduces effort and – importantly – offers a novel way to abdicate accountability. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm argued that the rise of fascism could be partly explained by a preference to surrender personal freedom in exchange for the comforting security of subordination. AI offers a digital method of relinquishing the burden of having to think and choose.

The Black Box Problem: Faith Over Reason

AI's primary draw is its ability to accomplish things beyond our minds – sifting through oceans of data at unprecedented speed. Sitting in the car in Marseille, this was, ultimately, why I chose to trust the app over my companion (a choice she took as an insult). With access to all the data, certainly the algorithm had superior insight – or so I believed.

The fundamental problem is that AI is a black box. It generates knowledge, but without necessarily fostering human understanding. We do not truly know how AI reaches its conclusions – including its programmers admit this. 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 returning to the domain of faith. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, side with the machine – that may become our 21st-century credo.

Harnessing Without Eroding: The Critical Balance

AI can be a powerful tool for humanity in scientific pursuit. It can aid in inventing drugs, free us from "bullshit jobs", or handle administrative chores – duties that are repetitive and offer little satisfaction. This is beneficial. But Kant and his contemporaries did not champion reason over faith just so humans could optimize chores or have more leisure. Critical thinking was not merely about productivity – it was a practice of liberty and human self-determination.

Human thought is often chaotic and fallible, but it forces us to argue, to question, to challenge concepts – and to acknowledge the boundaries of our own knowledge. It builds confidence, both personally and collectively. For Kant, the exercise of reason was never only about acquiring knowledge; it was about empowering people to become agents of their own lives, and to resist control. It was about building a moral community grounded in the common foundation of reason and debate, rather than blind belief.

With all the advantages AI offers, the paramount challenge is this: how can we leverage its potential of superhuman intelligence without undermining human rationality, the cornerstone of the Enlightenment and of free societies itself? That is likely one of the central dilemmas of our time. It is a question we must strive not to outsource to the algorithm.