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This recent season, I found myself navigating in congested traffic on the scorching streets of a southern French city. At a crossing, my companion in the front seat suggested a right turn toward a famous spot for bouillabaisse. However, the digital guide on my phone instructed us to go forward. Fatigued and overheated, I followed the algorithm's advice. Minutes later, we were stranded at a roadwork site.

A seemingly trivial incident, perhaps. But one that encapsulates a defining question of our time, where digital tools touches almost every aspect of our lives: who gets our trust to a greater degree – other people and our personal instincts, or the algorithm?

The Enlightenment's Promise and Our Modern Relapse

The renowned German philosopher Immanuel Kant famously described the Enlightenment as "humanity's emergence from its self-inflicted immaturity." This immaturity, he argued, "represents the incapacity to use one's personal reason without guidance from another." For ages, that guiding "other" for society was frequently the priest, the king, or the landowner – entities purporting to channel God's voice. To explain natural events like changing seasons, people sought answers in religion. In shaping the social world, from commerce to matters of the heart, religious doctrine served as the main compass.

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

Kant argued that humans had 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 dogma, would become the engine of progress and a better world.

Today, two and a half centuries later, one might wonder if we are quietly regressing into a form of dependency. An app dictating a driving route is merely the start. AI risks becoming our contemporary authority – a unseen overseer that influences our choices and actions. We are in danger of ceding the historically earned courage to think independently – and now, not to gods or kings, but to computer programs.

The Swift Adoption and Hidden Risks of Algorithmic Reliance

ChatGPT debuted only in 2022, and yet a recent study indicated that an vast number of people had used AI in the preceding half-year. Whether contemplating ending a relationship or choosing a candidate, individuals are increasingly turning to algorithms for counsel. Data suggests a significant portion of user queries concern personal life matters. Even more intriguing than our reliance on AI for advice is what happens when we allow it speak for us. Composition is now one of the top uses for tools like ChatGPT, just behind everyday tasks. The celebrated American author Joan Didion famously said, “I write entirely to find out what I am thinking.” What occurs when we stop composing? Do we lose that path?

Worryingly, emerging research hints the outcome may be affirmative. A study conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used electroencephalography 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. Maybe most concerning was that after a few months, individuals in the AI group became increasingly reliant, pasting large sections of text.

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

Of course, AI's appeal lies in its efficiency. It is fast, minimizes work and – importantly – offers a novel way to abdicate accountability. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm argued that the appeal of authoritarianism could be partly explained by a preference to surrender autonomy in for the sake of the comforting security of subordination. AI presents a modern avenue for relinquishing the weight of having to think and choose.

The Opacity Dilemma: Faith Over Reason

AI's greatest allure is its ability to accomplish things outside our minds – analyzing 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 affront). With access to real-time information, certainly the app had superior insight – or so I believed.

The fundamental problem is that AI is a black box. It generates knowledge, but without necessarily fostering human understanding. We do not truly know how AI reaches its conclusions – including its creators acknowledge the opacity. Nor can we check its logic against transparent standards. So when we follow AI's advice, we are not being guided by reason. We are returning to the realm of belief. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, trust the machine – that may become our future credo.

Harnessing Without Eroding: The Essential Challenge

AI can be a powerful tool for mankind in scientific pursuit. It can aid in inventing drugs, free us from "bullshit jobs", or manage administrative chores – work that demand little thought and offer little satisfaction. This is beneficial. But Kant and his contemporaries did not champion reason over faith just so humans could optimize chores or have more leisure. Independent thought was not merely about efficiency – it was a discipline of liberty and human self-determination.

Human thought is often chaotic and error-prone, but it forces us to argue, to question, to test ideas – and to acknowledge the boundaries of our own knowledge. It builds confidence, both individually and collectively. For Kant, the use of reason was never solely about acquiring knowledge; it was about empowering people to become authors of their own destinies, and to resist domination. It was about creating a moral community based on the common foundation of rational discourse, rather than blind belief.

With all the undeniable benefits AI offers, the paramount challenge remains: how can we harness its promise of superhuman intelligence without eroding human rationality, the bedrock of the Enlightenment and of free societies themselves? That may be one of the central dilemmas of our century. It is a question we must strive not to outsource to the algorithm.