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This past summer, I found myself navigating in gridlocked traffic on the scorching streets of a southern French city. At a crossing, my companion 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 roadwork site.

A minor event, maybe. But one that encapsulates a defining dilemma of our time, where digital tools permeates nearly every facet of our lives: who gets our trust to a greater degree – other people and our own intuition, or the machine?

A Call for Intellectual Maturity and A Contemporary Backslide

The influential German philosopher Immanuel Kant once defined the Enlightenment as "man's release from its self-inflicted nonage." This state, he wrote, "is the incapacity to use one's personal reason without direction from another." For ages, that guiding "other" for human thought was often the clergyman, the monarch, or the feudal lord – figures purporting to channel God's voice. To explain natural events like changing seasons, people sought answers in religion. In organizing the social world, from commerce to love, faith acted as the main compass.

“Sapere aude!” or “Have courage to use your own understanding!”

Kant maintained that humans had the ability to think rationally. They simply lacked the boldness to employ it. With revolutions in the 18th century, a new dawn emerged: reason would supplant blind faith, and the intellect, liberated from dogma, would become the engine of advancement and a better world.

Today, 250 years later, one might question if we are quietly regressing into a state of dependency. An app suggesting a driving route is merely the start. AI risks becoming our new "other" – a unseen guide that steers our decisions and behaviors. We risk relinquishing the historically earned 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 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 deciding on ending a relationship or choosing a candidate, individuals are increasingly turning to algorithms for guidance. Research suggests a significant portion of user prompts relate to personal life matters. Even more intriguing than our use of AI for advice is what occurs when we allow it express for us. Writing is now among the top uses for generative AI, second only to everyday tasks. The celebrated American author Joan Didion famously said, “I write purely to discover what I am thinking.” What occurs when we cease writing? Do we lose that path?

Worryingly, some evidence suggests the answer may be affirmative. A study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used brain monitoring to track the mental engagement of essay writers who had access to AI, traditional search engines, or nothing. Those who could rely on AI displayed the lowest cognitive engagement and had trouble accurately recalling their own work. Perhaps most troubling was that over time, participants in the AI group became progressively lazier, copying large sections of text.

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

Certainly, AI's attraction lies in its efficiency. It is fast, reduces effort and – importantly – offers a new method to offload accountability. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm argued that the appeal of authoritarianism could be understood by a preference to surrender personal freedom in for the sake of the comforting security of obedience. AI presents a modern avenue for relinquishing the weight of having to think and choose.

The Black Box Problem: Faith Over Reason

AI's primary draw is its ability to perform tasks beyond our minds – analyzing vast datasets at unprecedented speed. Stuck in the car in Marseille, this was, after all, why I chose to believe the machine over my friend (a choice she took as an affront). With knowledge of all the data, certainly the algorithm must know best – or so I believed.

The fundamental problem is that AI is a opaque system. It generates knowledge, but without necessarily deepening human comprehension. We cannot fully grasp the process behind its conclusions – including its programmers admit this. Nor can we verify its reasoning against clear, objective criteria. So when we follow AI's recommendation, we are not being led by logic. We are back in the domain of belief. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, side with the machine – that may become our future credo.

Using Without Losing: The Critical Balance

AI can be a formidable ally for humanity in rational inquiry. It can aid in inventing drugs, free us from tedious tasks, or handle administrative chores – duties that demand little thought and are unfulfilling. This is beneficial. But Kant and his contemporaries did not champion reason over faith just so humans could assemble better furniture or have extra free time. Critical thinking was not just about efficiency – it was a practice of liberty and human emancipation.

Human thought is inherently messy and fallible, but it compels us to argue, to question, to test ideas – and to acknowledge the boundaries of our own knowledge. It fosters self-reliance, both personally 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 destinies, and to oppose domination. It was about building a moral community grounded in the shared principle of rational discourse, rather than blind belief.

With all the undeniable benefits AI offers, the paramount challenge is this: how can we harness its promise of superhuman intelligence without eroding human reasoning, the bedrock of the Enlightenment and of free societies themselves? That may be one of the defining questions of our century. It is a question we must strive not to delegate to the algorithm.