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This past summer, I found myself navigating in gridlocked traffic on the sweltering streets of a southern French city. At a crossing, my friend in the passenger seat suggested a right turn toward a famous spot for bouillabaisse. However, the digital guide on my phone commanded us to continue straight. Fatigued 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 central dilemma of our time, where technology permeates almost every aspect of our lives: whom do we trust to a greater degree – other people and our personal instincts, or the machine?

A Call for Intellectual Maturity and Our Modern Relapse

The renowned German philosopher Immanuel Kant famously described the Enlightenment as "humanity's emergence from its self-imposed immaturity." This state, he argued, "represents the inability to use one's own understanding without direction from an external source." For ages, that directing force for society was often the clergyman, the king, or the feudal lord – entities purporting to speak for divine will. To explain phenomena like changing seasons, people sought answers in theology. In organizing the fabric of society, from economics to love, faith acted as the primary guide.

“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 boldness to use it. With upheavals in the 18th century, a new dawn arrived: reason would replace blind faith, and the intellect, freed from authority, would become the driver of advancement and a better world.

Now, two and a half centuries later, one might wonder if we are slipping back into a form of dependency. An app dictating a direction is merely the start. AI threatens to become our contemporary authority – a silent guide that influences our decisions and actions. We are in danger of relinquishing the hard-won autonomy to reason for ourselves – and now, not to deities or rulers, but to lines of code.

The Swift Adoption and Hidden Risks of Algorithmic Reliance

ChatGPT debuted only in 2022, and yet a global survey found that an vast number of respondents had engaged with artificial intelligence in the previous six months. Whether contemplating ending a relationship or selecting a vote, individuals are looking to algorithms for counsel. Data suggests a significant portion of user queries relate to personal life matters. Even more striking than our use of AI for judgment is what happens when we allow it express for us. Composition is now one of the most common uses for tools like ChatGPT, just behind everyday tasks. The late American author Joan Didion famously said, “I write entirely to find out what I am thinking.” What occurs when we cease writing? Do we cease discovering?

Worryingly, some evidence hints the outcome may be yes. A study conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used electroencephalography to track the mental engagement of participants who had access to AI, Google, or no aids. Those who could use AI displayed the lowest brain activity and had trouble accurately recalling their own work. Perhaps most concerning was that after a few months, individuals in the AI group grew increasingly reliant, pasting entire blocks of text.

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

Of course, AI's attraction lies in its efficiency. It saves time, 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 for the sake of the reassuring certainty of obedience. AI presents a modern avenue for surrendering the weight of having to decide for oneself.

The Opacity Dilemma: Trust Without Understanding

AI's primary draw is its capacity to perform tasks beyond human capability – sifting through oceans of data at unprecedented speed. Stuck in the car in Marseille, this was, ultimately, why I opted to trust the machine over my friend (a decision she took as an insult). With knowledge of real-time information, certainly the algorithm must know best – or so I believed.

The fundamental problem is that AI is a black box. It produces answers, but without necessarily deepening human understanding. We do not truly know how AI reaches its decisions – including its programmers admit this. Nor can we check its reasoning against clear, objective criteria. So when we follow AI's advice, we are not being guided by reason. We are returning to the domain of belief. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, side with the machine – that could be our 21st-century guiding principle.

Harnessing Without Eroding: The Critical Balance

AI can be a powerful tool for mankind in rational inquiry. It can help medical research, liberate us from "bullshit jobs", or handle administrative chores – work that demand little thought and offer little satisfaction. This is beneficial. But Kant and his peers did not advocate for enlightenment just so humans could optimize chores or have extra free time. Independent thought was not merely about productivity – it was a discipline of liberty and human self-determination.

Human thought is often chaotic and error-prone, but it forces us to argue, to question, to challenge concepts – and to recognize the boundaries of our own understanding. It builds self-reliance, both individually and collectively. For Kant, the exercise of reason was never only about acquiring knowledge; it was about enabling people to become agents of their own lives, and to oppose control. It was about building a ethical society grounded in the shared principle of rational discourse, rather than unquestioning acceptance.

With all the advantages AI offers, the key question is this: how can we leverage its promise of superhuman intelligence without undermining human rationality, the cornerstone of the Enlightenment and of liberal democracy itself? That is likely one of the central dilemmas of our century. It is a question we would do well not to outsource to the machine.