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This recent season, I found myself navigating in gridlocked traffic on the sweltering streets of Marseille. At a crossing, my companion in the front seat advised a right turn toward a renowned spot for fish soup. However, the navigation app on my phone instructed us to go forward. Weary and in a stifling car, I followed the app's advice. Minutes later, we were stranded at a construction site.

A seemingly trivial event, maybe. But one that captures a central question of our time, where digital tools touches nearly every facet of our lives: whom do we trust to a greater degree – fellow humans and our personal instincts, or the algorithm?

The Enlightenment's Promise and A Contemporary Backslide

The renowned German philosopher Immanuel Kant famously described the Enlightenment as "humanity's emergence from its self-inflicted immaturity." This state, he wrote, "represents the inability to use one's personal reason without direction from another." For ages, that guiding "other" for society was frequently the clergyman, the monarch, or the landowner – figures purporting to speak for God's voice. To explain natural events like changing seasons, people sought answers in religion. In organizing the fabric of society, from economics to matters of the heart, religious doctrine served as the primary guide.

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

Kant maintained that humans always possessed the capacity for reason. They simply lacked the boldness to use it. With revolutions in America and France, a new dawn emerged: reason would replace blind faith, and the human mind, freed from dogma, would become the driver of progress and a more ethical world.

Today, two and a half centuries later, one might question if we are quietly regressing into a form of dependency. An app dictating a driving route is merely the start. Artificial intelligence risks becoming our new "other" – a unseen overseer that influences our choices and actions. We are in danger of relinquishing the historically earned autonomy to think independently – and this time, not to gods or kings, but to computer programs.

The Swift Adoption and Subtle Dangers of AI Dependence

ChatGPT was launched a mere three years ago, and already a recent study found that an vast number of respondents had used AI in the previous six months. Whether deciding on ending a relationship or selecting a vote, individuals are increasingly turning to algorithms for guidance. Data suggests a large majority of user prompts concern personal life matters. Even more striking than our use of AI for judgment is what occurs when we allow it speak for us. Composition is now among the top uses for tools like ChatGPT, just behind everyday tasks. The celebrated American author Joan Didion famously said, “I write purely to discover what I am thinking.” What occurs when we stop composing? Do we cease discovering?

Alarmingly, some evidence hints the outcome may be yes. A study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used electroencephalography to observe the cognitive activity of essay writers who had access to AI, Google, or no aids. Those who could rely on AI showed the least cognitive engagement and had difficulty quoting their own work. Perhaps most concerning was that after a few months, individuals in the AI group grew progressively lazier, copying entire blocks of text.

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

Certainly, AI's attraction stems from its convenience. It is fast, minimizes work and – critically – offers a novel way to offload responsibility. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm proposed that the rise of fascism could be partly explained by a preference to surrender autonomy in exchange for the reassuring certainty of obedience. AI offers a digital avenue for relinquishing the weight of having to think and choose.

The Opacity Dilemma: Faith Over Reason

AI's greatest allure is its capacity to perform tasks beyond human capability – sifting through oceans of data at unprecedented speed. Sitting in the car in Marseille, this was, after all, why I opted to trust the machine over my companion (a decision she interpreted as an insult). With knowledge of all the data, surely the app must know best – or so I thought.

The core issue is that AI operates as a opaque system. It produces knowledge, but not always deepening human comprehension. We do not truly know how AI reaches its conclusions – including its creators acknowledge the opacity. Nor can we verify its reasoning against transparent standards. So when we heed AI's recommendation, 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 could be our future guiding principle.

Using Without Losing: The Essential Challenge

AI can be a formidable ally for mankind in rational inquiry. It can aid in medical research, free us from "bullshit jobs", or manage taxes – work that are repetitive and are unfulfilling. All to the good. But Kant and his peers did not advocate for reason over faith just so humans could assemble better furniture or have extra free time. Independent thought was not merely about efficiency – it was a practice of liberty and human emancipation.

Human thought is inherently messy and fallible, but it compels us to debate, to doubt, to challenge concepts – and to acknowledge the boundaries of our own knowledge. It builds self-reliance, both individually and collectively. For Kant, the use of reason was never solely about information; it was about enabling people to become agents of their own lives, and to resist domination. It was about building a ethical society grounded in the shared principle 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 advanced capability without undermining human reasoning, the cornerstone of the Enlightenment and of liberal democracy itself? That may be one of the central dilemmas of our time. It is a question we would do well not to delegate to the machine.