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This past summer, I found myself navigating in congested traffic on the sweltering streets of a southern French city. At an intersection, my friend in the passenger seat suggested a right turn toward a renowned spot for bouillabaisse. However, the digital guide on my phone commanded us to go forward. Weary and overheated, I followed the app's directive. Minutes later, we were stranded at a roadwork site.

A minor incident, perhaps. But one that captures a defining question of our era, where technology touches almost every aspect of existence: who gets our trust more – fellow humans and our personal instincts, or the machine?

The Enlightenment's Promise and A Contemporary Backslide

The influential German philosopher Immanuel Kant famously described the Enlightenment as "man's release from its self-imposed immaturity." This immaturity, he argued, "is the incapacity to use one's personal reason without direction from another." For centuries, that directing force for society was frequently the priest, the monarch, or the feudal lord – entities claiming to channel God's voice. To comprehend phenomena like volcanic eruptions, people sought answers in theology. In shaping the fabric of society, from commerce to matters of the heart, religious doctrine served as the primary guide.

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

Kant maintained that humans had the ability to think rationally. They just didn't have the boldness to employ it. With upheavals in the 18th century, a new dawn arrived: reason would replace superstition, and the human mind, freed from authority, would become the driver of progress and a better world.

Now, 250 years later, one might wonder if we are slipping back into a form of intellectual immaturity. An app suggesting a driving route is just one example. AI risks becoming our new "other" – a silent overseer that influences our decisions and actions. We are in danger of ceding the hard-won autonomy to reason for ourselves – and this time, not to gods or kings, but to computer programs.

The Swift Adoption and Hidden Risks of AI Dependence

ChatGPT was launched only in 2022, and already a recent study indicated that an overwhelming majority of respondents had engaged with artificial intelligence in the preceding half-year. Whether deciding on ending a relationship or selecting a vote, individuals are looking to machines for counsel. Data suggests a significant portion of user prompts relate to non-work topics. Even more intriguing than our use of AI for judgment is what occurs when we allow 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 once remarked, “I write purely to discover what I am thinking.” What transpires when we stop composing? Do we cease discovering?

Worryingly, emerging research suggests the outcome may be affirmative. A study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used brain monitoring to observe the cognitive activity of essay writers who had access to AI, traditional search engines, or nothing. Those who could rely on AI showed the lowest cognitive engagement and had trouble quoting their own work. Perhaps most troubling was that over time, participants in the AI group became increasingly reliant, copying entire blocks of text.

“Laziness and cowardice,” Kant wrote, “are the reasons why so great a proportion of men … stay in lifelong immaturity.”

Certainly, AI's appeal lies in its convenience. It saves time, reduces effort and – importantly – offers a new method to offload responsibility. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm argued that the rise of fascism could be understood by a preference to give up personal freedom in for the sake of the comforting security of subordination. AI offers a digital avenue for surrendering the weight of having to think and choose.

The Opacity Dilemma: Trust Without Understanding

AI's primary draw is its ability to perform tasks outside human capability – analyzing oceans of data at unprecedented speed. Sitting in the car in Marseille, this was, after all, why I opted to trust the machine over my friend (a decision she took as an insult). With access to real-time information, certainly the algorithm had superior insight – or so I thought.

The fundamental problem is that AI is a opaque system. It generates knowledge, but not always fostering human understanding. We do not truly know how AI reaches its decisions – including its creators acknowledge the opacity. Nor can we check its logic against transparent standards. 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, trust the machine – that may become our 21st-century credo.

Using Without Losing: The Critical Balance

AI can be a powerful tool for mankind in rational inquiry. It can aid in medical research, liberate us from "bullshit jobs", or handle taxes – work that are repetitive and offer little satisfaction. This is beneficial. But Kant and his contemporaries did not champion enlightenment just so humans could assemble better furniture or have more leisure. Independent thought was not merely about efficiency – it was a discipline of liberty and human emancipation.

Human thought is inherently messy and error-prone, but it compels us to debate, to doubt, to test ideas – and to acknowledge the limits of our own understanding. It builds self-reliance, both personally and as a society. For Kant, the use of reason was never solely about acquiring knowledge; it was about enabling people to become authors of their own destinies, and to resist control. It was about building a moral community based on the shared principle of reason and debate, rather than unquestioning acceptance.

With all the undeniable benefits AI offers, the key question is this: how can we harness its potential of superhuman intelligence without undermining human rationality, the cornerstone of the Enlightenment and of liberal democracy itself? That may be one of the central dilemmas of our century. It is a question we would do well not to delegate to the algorithm.