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This recent season, I was caught in gridlocked traffic on the scorching streets of a southern French city. At an intersection, my friend in the passenger seat advised a right turn toward a famous spot for fish soup. However, the digital guide on my phone commanded us to continue straight. Fatigued and in a stifling car, I heeded the algorithm's advice. Moments later, we were stranded at a roadwork site.

A minor incident, perhaps. But one that captures a central question of our era, where technology touches nearly every facet of our lives: whom do we trust more – other people and our personal instincts, or the algorithm?

A Call for Intellectual Maturity and A Contemporary Backslide

The renowned German philosopher Immanuel Kant once defined the Enlightenment as "humanity's emergence from its self-imposed nonage." This state, he argued, "is the inability to use one's personal reason without direction from an external source." For centuries, that directing force for human thought was frequently the clergyman, the king, or the feudal lord – entities claiming to speak for God's voice. To explain phenomena like changing seasons, people looked for explanations in theology. In organizing the fabric of society, from commerce to love, religious doctrine served as the main compass.

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

Kant argued that humans had the ability to think rationally. They just didn't have the confidence to employ it. With revolutions in America and France, a new dawn emerged: logic would replace superstition, and the intellect, liberated from authority, would become the engine of advancement and a more ethical world.

Now, 250 years later, one might wonder if we are quietly regressing into a form of dependency. An app suggesting a direction is merely the start. AI threatens to become our contemporary authority – a unseen overseer that influences our choices and actions. We risk ceding the hard-won autonomy to think independently – and this time, not to deities or rulers, but to lines of code.

The Swift Adoption and Subtle Dangers of AI Dependence

ChatGPT debuted only in 2022, and yet a global survey found that an overwhelming majority of people had used AI in the previous six months. Whether contemplating a breakup or choosing a candidate, individuals are looking to algorithms for guidance. Research suggests a large majority of user prompts relate to non-work topics. Even more striking than our reliance on AI for judgment is what happens when we let it speak 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 find out what I am thinking.” What occurs when we stop composing? Do we cease discovering?

Worryingly, emerging research hints the answer may be yes. A study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used brain monitoring to track the cognitive activity of essay writers who had access to AI, Google, or no aids. Those who could use AI showed the least cognitive engagement and had difficulty quoting their own work. Perhaps most troubling was that after a few months, participants in the AI group grew progressively lazier, copying entire blocks of text.

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

Certainly, AI's appeal stems from its convenience. It is fast, minimizes work and – critically – offers a new method to abdicate accountability. 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 surrender autonomy in for the sake of the reassuring certainty of subordination. AI presents a digital avenue for relinquishing the weight of having to think and choose.

The Black Box Problem: Trust Without Understanding

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

The core issue is that AI operates as a opaque system. It generates knowledge, but not always deepening human comprehension. We cannot fully grasp the process behind its conclusions – 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 led by logic. We are returning to the realm of faith. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, trust the machine – that may become our future credo.

Using Without Losing: The Essential Challenge

AI can be a formidable ally for mankind in scientific pursuit. It can help medical research, liberate us from "bullshit jobs", or manage administrative chores – duties that are repetitive and are unfulfilling. All to the good. But Kant and his contemporaries did not champion reason over faith just so humans could optimize chores or have extra free time. Critical thinking was not just about efficiency – it was a discipline of freedom and human self-determination.

Human thought is inherently messy and error-prone, but it forces us to argue, to doubt, to test ideas – and to acknowledge the boundaries of our own knowledge. It builds self-reliance, both personally and as a society. For Kant, the use 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 moral community grounded in the common foundation of rational discourse, rather than blind belief.

With all the undeniable benefits AI brings, the key question is this: how can we leverage its potential of advanced capability without eroding human rationality, the bedrock of the Enlightenment and of free societies itself? That is likely one of the central dilemmas of our time. It is a question we would do well not to delegate to the algorithm.