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This past summer, 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. Yet, the navigation app on my phone instructed us to continue straight. Weary and in a stifling car, I followed the app's advice. Moments later, we were stuck at a construction site.

A minor incident, maybe. But one that captures a central dilemma of our era, where digital tools touches almost every aspect of existence: whom do we trust to a greater degree – other people and our own intuition, or the algorithm?

The Enlightenment's Promise and Our Modern Relapse

The influential German philosopher Immanuel Kant once defined the Enlightenment as "humanity's emergence from its self-imposed nonage." This state, he wrote, "is the inability to use one's personal reason without direction from an external source." For centuries, that guiding "other" for society was frequently the priest, the monarch, or the landowner – entities claiming to channel divine will. To comprehend phenomena like changing seasons, people sought answers in theology. In organizing the fabric of society, from economics to matters of the heart, faith served as the main compass.

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

Kant maintained that humans always possessed the ability to think rationally. They just didn't have the boldness to employ it. With revolutions in America and France, a new dawn arrived: logic would replace blind faith, and the intellect, liberated from dogma, would become the driver of advancement and a better world.

Today, two and a half centuries later, one might wonder if we are slipping back into a state of dependency. An app suggesting a direction is just one example. Artificial intelligence risks becoming our contemporary authority – a unseen overseer that steers our choices and actions. We are in danger of ceding the historically earned autonomy to think independently – and this time, not to gods or kings, but to computer programs.

The Rapid Rise and Hidden Risks of AI Dependence

ChatGPT debuted a mere three years ago, and yet a global survey found that an overwhelming majority of respondents had used AI in the previous six months. Whether deciding on a breakup or choosing a candidate, individuals are looking to machines for counsel. Research suggests a large majority of user queries concern non-work topics. Even more intriguing than our use of AI for judgment is what occurs when we allow it express for us. Composition is now one of the top uses for generative AI, second only to practical requests. The late American author Joan Didion once remarked, “I write entirely to discover what I am thinking.” What transpires when we cease writing? Do we lose that path?

Alarmingly, emerging research hints the outcome may be affirmative. A study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used brain monitoring to track the mental engagement of participants who had access to AI, traditional search engines, or nothing. Those who could use AI showed the lowest brain activity and had difficulty quoting their own work. Perhaps most concerning was that after a few months, individuals in the AI group became progressively lazier, copying entire blocks of text.

“Inertia and fear,” Kant wrote, “are the reasons why so great a proportion of men … remain in lifelong immaturity.”

Of course, AI's appeal lies in its efficiency. It saves time, minimizes work and – critically – offers a new method to offload 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 for the sake of the reassuring certainty of obedience. AI presents a digital method of relinquishing the burden of having to decide for oneself.

The Black Box Problem: Faith Over Reason

AI's primary draw is its ability to accomplish things outside human capability – analyzing vast datasets at unprecedented speed. Stuck in the car in Marseille, this was, after all, why I chose to trust the machine over my companion (a choice she took as an affront). With knowledge of all the data, surely the app had superior insight – or so I believed.

The fundamental problem is that AI is a opaque system. It generates answers, but not always fostering human comprehension. We cannot fully grasp how AI reaches its conclusions – even its creators acknowledge the opacity. Nor can we check its reasoning against transparent standards. 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.

Harnessing Without Eroding: The Critical Balance

AI can be a powerful tool for humanity in rational inquiry. It can help inventing drugs, free us from "bullshit jobs", or handle taxes – duties that are repetitive and are unfulfilling. All to the good. But Kant and his peers did not champion enlightenment just so humans could assemble better furniture or have extra free time. Independent thought was not just about productivity – it was a discipline of liberty and human self-determination.

Human thought is inherently messy and error-prone, but it compels us to argue, to question, to test ideas – and to acknowledge the limits of our own understanding. It fosters self-reliance, both personally and collectively. 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 creating a moral community grounded in the common foundation of reason and debate, rather than blind belief.

With all the advantages AI offers, the paramount challenge is this: how can we harness its promise of advanced capability without eroding human reasoning, the bedrock of the Enlightenment and of free societies itself? That may be one of the central dilemmas of our time. It is a question we must strive not to outsource to the algorithm.