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This recent season, I found myself navigating in congested traffic on the sweltering streets of a southern French city. At a crossing, 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. Fatigued and overheated, I followed the app's directive. Minutes later, we were stuck at a roadwork site.

A minor event, maybe. But one that encapsulates a defining dilemma of our time, where digital tools touches almost every aspect of our lives: whom do we trust more – other people and our own intuition, or the machine?

The Enlightenment's Promise and Our Modern Relapse

The renowned German philosopher Immanuel Kant once defined the Enlightenment as "man's release from its self-inflicted nonage." This state, he argued, "is the inability to use one's own understanding without direction from another." For centuries, that guiding "other" for human thought was frequently the priest, the monarch, or the landowner – figures claiming to channel God's voice. To explain phenomena like volcanic eruptions, people looked for explanations 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 reason!”

Kant argued that humans had the capacity for reason. They simply lacked the confidence to employ it. With upheavals in the 18th century, a fresh era emerged: logic would supplant superstition, and the intellect, liberated from authority, would become the driver of advancement and a better world.

Now, 250 years later, one might question if we are slipping back into a state of intellectual immaturity. An app suggesting a direction is just one example. Artificial intelligence threatens to become our new "other" – a unseen guide that steers our decisions and actions. We risk ceding the historically earned courage 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 a mere three years ago, and yet a recent study found that an overwhelming majority of people had engaged with artificial intelligence in the previous six months. Whether contemplating ending a relationship or choosing a candidate, individuals are increasingly turning to algorithms for guidance. Data suggests a large majority of user prompts relate to personal life matters. Even more striking than our use of AI for advice is what happens when we allow it express for us. Writing is now among the top uses for tools like ChatGPT, just behind everyday tasks. The late American author Joan Didion famously said, “I write purely to find out what I am thinking.” What transpires when we stop composing? Do we lose that path?

Alarmingly, some evidence suggests the outcome may be affirmative. A study conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used brain monitoring to observe the mental engagement of participants who had access to AI, Google, or no aids. Those who could rely on AI displayed the lowest cognitive engagement and had trouble accurately recalling their own work. Maybe most concerning was that over time, participants in the AI group became increasingly reliant, copying large sections of text.

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

Of course, AI's attraction stems from its convenience. It saves time, reduces effort and – critically – offers a new method to abdicate 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 give up autonomy in for the sake of the comforting security of subordination. AI presents a digital method of relinquishing the burden of having to think and choose.

The Opacity Dilemma: Trust Without Understanding

AI's primary draw is its capacity to perform tasks outside our minds – sifting through oceans of data at lightning pace. Sitting in the car in Marseille, this was, after all, why I opted to believe the app over my friend (a decision she interpreted as an affront). With knowledge of real-time information, surely the algorithm must know best – or so I thought.

The fundamental problem is that AI is a black box. It generates answers, but without necessarily fostering human comprehension. We do not truly know the process behind its decisions – including its creators acknowledge the opacity. Nor can we verify its reasoning against transparent standards. So when we heed AI's advice, we are not being led by logic. We are back in the realm of belief. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, trust the machine – that could be our 21st-century guiding principle.

Harnessing Without Eroding: The Essential Challenge

AI can be a powerful tool for mankind in scientific pursuit. It can help inventing drugs, liberate us from "bullshit jobs", or manage administrative chores – work that are repetitive and offer little satisfaction. All to the good. But Kant and his contemporaries did not champion enlightenment just so humans could optimize chores or have extra free time. Independent thought was not just about efficiency – it was a discipline of freedom and human emancipation.

Human thought is inherently messy and fallible, but it forces us to argue, to question, to test ideas – and to acknowledge the boundaries of our own understanding. It builds self-reliance, both individually and as a society. For Kant, the use 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 creating a ethical society grounded in the shared principle of rational discourse, rather than blind belief.

With all the advantages AI brings, the key question is this: how can we leverage its promise of advanced capability without undermining human reasoning, the cornerstone of the Enlightenment and of free societies themselves? That may be one of the defining questions of our century. It is a question we would do well not to outsource to the machine.