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This recent season, I was caught in gridlocked traffic on the sweltering streets of Marseille. At a crossing, my friend in the front seat advised a right turn toward a famous spot for bouillabaisse. However, the digital guide on my phone commanded us to go forward. Fatigued and in a stifling car, I followed the app's advice. Moments later, we were stranded at a construction site.

A minor event, perhaps. But one that captures a central question of our time, where technology permeates nearly every facet of our lives: who gets our trust to a greater degree – other people and our personal instincts, or the machine?

The Enlightenment's Promise and Our Modern Relapse

The renowned German philosopher Immanuel Kant once defined the Enlightenment as "humanity's emergence from its self-imposed nonage." This immaturity, he wrote, "represents the inability to use one's personal reason without direction from another." For ages, that directing force for society was often the clergyman, the monarch, or the landowner – figures purporting to channel God's voice. To explain natural events like changing seasons, people looked for explanations in theology. In organizing the fabric of society, from economics to love, faith served as the main compass.

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

Kant argued that humans always possessed the capacity for reason. They just didn't have the confidence to employ it. With upheavals in America and France, a fresh era emerged: logic would supplant blind faith, and the human mind, freed from authority, would become the driver of progress and a better world.

Now, 250 years later, one might question if we are slipping back into a state of dependency. An app dictating a driving route is merely the start. Artificial intelligence threatens to become our contemporary authority – a unseen overseer that steers our choices and behaviors. We are in danger of relinquishing the hard-won autonomy to think independently – and now, 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 yet a global survey found 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 increasingly turning to algorithms for counsel. Data suggests a significant portion of user queries relate to personal life matters. Even more striking than our reliance on AI for advice is what happens when we let it express for us. Composition is now among the most common uses for tools like ChatGPT, second only to practical requests. The late American author Joan Didion famously said, “I write entirely to discover what I am thinking.” What occurs when we cease writing? Do we cease discovering?

Worryingly, some evidence suggests the answer may be affirmative. A study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used brain monitoring to observe the mental engagement of participants who had could use AI, traditional search engines, or nothing. Those who could use AI showed the least brain activity and had difficulty quoting their own work. Perhaps most troubling was that after a few months, participants in the AI group grew progressively lazier, pasting entire blocks of text.

“Inertia and fear,” Kant wrote, “are the reasons why so great a proportion of men … stay in perpetual nonage.”

Of course, AI's appeal stems from its convenience. It saves time, minimizes work and – importantly – 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 give up autonomy in exchange for the comforting security of obedience. AI offers a modern avenue for surrendering the weight of having to decide for oneself.

The Black Box Problem: Trust Without Understanding

AI's primary draw is its ability to accomplish things outside 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 companion (a choice she took as an affront). With knowledge of real-time information, certainly the algorithm had superior insight – or so I believed.

The fundamental problem is that AI is a black box. It generates answers, but without necessarily fostering human comprehension. We cannot fully grasp the process behind its conclusions – including its creators admit this. Nor can we verify its logic against transparent standards. So when we follow AI's recommendation, we are not being led by logic. We are back in 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 mankind in rational inquiry. It can help medical research, liberate us from tedious tasks, or manage administrative chores – work that demand little thought and offer little satisfaction. This is beneficial. 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 emancipation.

Human thought is often chaotic and error-prone, but it compels us to argue, to question, to test ideas – and to recognize the boundaries of our own understanding. It builds self-reliance, both personally and collectively. For Kant, the use of reason was never only about information; it was about empowering people to become authors of their own destinies, and to oppose domination. It was about creating a moral community based on the shared principle of rational discourse, rather than blind belief.

With all the undeniable benefits AI brings, the paramount challenge remains: how can we leverage its potential of superhuman intelligence without eroding human reasoning, the bedrock of the Enlightenment and of free societies themselves? That may be one of the defining questions of our time. It is a question we would do well not to delegate to the machine.