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This past summer, I found myself navigating in congested traffic on the scorching streets of Marseille. At an intersection, my friend in the passenger seat advised a right turn toward a renowned spot for fish soup. Yet, the navigation app on my phone instructed us to continue straight. Weary and overheated, I followed the algorithm's directive. Moments later, we were stranded at a construction site.

A seemingly trivial incident, perhaps. But one that encapsulates a central question of our era, where digital tools permeates nearly every facet of existence: 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 once defined the Enlightenment as "man's release from its self-inflicted nonage." This state, he wrote, "is the incapacity to use one's own understanding without direction from an external source." For ages, that guiding "other" for society was often the clergyman, the monarch, or the feudal lord – entities claiming to channel divine will. To explain phenomena like changing seasons, people looked for explanations in religion. In organizing the social world, from commerce to matters of the heart, religious doctrine acted as the primary guide.

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

Kant argued that humans always possessed the capacity for reason. They simply lacked the boldness to employ it. With revolutions in America and France, a fresh era arrived: reason would replace superstition, and the human mind, freed from authority, would become the driver of progress and a more ethical world.

Now, 250 years later, one might wonder if we are slipping back into a form of intellectual immaturity. An app dictating a driving route is merely the start. AI threatens to become our new "other" – a unseen guide that influences our choices and behaviors. We are in danger of relinquishing the historically earned autonomy to reason for ourselves – and this time, not to gods or kings, but to computer programs.

The Rapid Rise and Subtle Dangers of Algorithmic Reliance

ChatGPT was launched only in 2022, and yet a recent study found that an vast number of people 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 guidance. Research suggests a large majority of user prompts relate to non-work topics. Even more intriguing than our reliance on AI for advice is what occurs when we allow it speak for us. Composition is now among the most common uses for generative AI, second only to practical requests. The celebrated American author Joan Didion famously said, “I write entirely to find out what I am thinking.” What transpires when we stop composing? Do we cease discovering?

Worryingly, emerging research hints the outcome may be affirmative. A study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used electroencephalography to track the mental engagement of essay writers who had could use AI, traditional search engines, or no aids. 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, 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 stems from its convenience. It saves time, reduces effort and – critically – offers a novel way to abdicate responsibility. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm proposed that the appeal of authoritarianism could be understood by a preference to give up personal freedom in exchange for the reassuring certainty of obedience. 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 capacity to perform tasks beyond our minds – analyzing oceans of data at unprecedented speed. Sitting in the car in Marseille, this was, after all, why I chose to trust the app over my companion (a choice she interpreted as an affront). With access to all the data, certainly the algorithm had superior insight – or so I believed.

The core issue is that AI is a black box. It generates answers, but without necessarily deepening human understanding. We do not truly know the process behind its decisions – including its creators acknowledge the opacity. Nor can we check its logic against clear, objective criteria. So when we follow AI's advice, we are not being led by logic. We are returning to 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 Essential Challenge

AI can be a powerful tool for humanity in rational inquiry. It can help inventing drugs, liberate us from "bullshit jobs", or manage taxes – work that are repetitive and offer little satisfaction. All to the good. But Kant and his peers did not champion reason over faith just so humans could optimize chores or have extra free time. Critical thinking was not just about productivity – it was a discipline of liberty and human self-determination.

Human thought is often chaotic and fallible, but it forces us to argue, to question, to test ideas – and to recognize the boundaries of our own knowledge. It builds confidence, both personally and as a society. For Kant, the exercise of reason was never only about information; it was about enabling people to become agents of their own lives, and to resist control. It was about building a moral community grounded in the shared principle of reason and debate, rather than blind belief.

With all the advantages AI offers, the paramount challenge remains: how can we harness its promise of superhuman intelligence without eroding human rationality, the cornerstone of the Enlightenment and of liberal democracy itself? That may be one of the defining questions of our century. It is a question we must strive not to delegate to the machine.