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This recent season, I was caught in congested traffic on the scorching streets of Marseille. At an intersection, my friend in the front seat advised a right turn toward a famous spot for fish soup. However, the navigation app on my phone instructed us to go forward. Weary and overheated, I followed the algorithm's directive. Minutes later, we were stuck at a roadwork site.

A seemingly trivial incident, perhaps. But one that captures a defining dilemma of our time, where technology touches nearly every facet of existence: whom do we trust to a greater degree – other people and our own intuition, or the machine?

The Enlightenment's Promise and A Contemporary Backslide

The influential German philosopher Immanuel Kant once defined the Enlightenment as "man's release from its self-inflicted immaturity." This state, he wrote, "is the incapacity to use one's own understanding without direction from another." For centuries, that directing force for society was frequently the priest, the king, or the landowner – figures purporting to channel divine will. To explain phenomena like volcanic eruptions, people sought answers in theology. In shaping the fabric of society, from economics to matters of the heart, faith acted as the primary guide.

“Sapere aude!” or “Have courage to use your reason!”

Kant maintained that humans always possessed the ability to think rationally. They just didn't have the boldness to employ it. With revolutions in the 18th century, a fresh era emerged: reason would supplant superstition, and the human mind, freed from dogma, would become the engine of progress and a better world.

Today, 250 years later, one might wonder if we are quietly regressing into a state of dependency. An app dictating a direction is merely the start. Artificial intelligence threatens to become our contemporary authority – a silent guide that steers our choices and behaviors. We are in danger of relinquishing the historically earned courage to think independently – and this time, not to deities or rulers, but to computer programs.

The Rapid Rise 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 contemplating ending a relationship or choosing a candidate, individuals are looking to machines for counsel. Data suggests a significant portion of user prompts concern personal life matters. Even more striking than our use of AI for judgment is what happens when we allow it speak for us. Composition is now among the top uses for generative AI, second only to everyday tasks. The celebrated American author Joan Didion famously said, “I write purely to find out what I am thinking.” What transpires when we stop composing? Do we cease discovering?

Alarmingly, some evidence suggests the answer may be yes. A study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used brain monitoring to observe the mental engagement of participants who had access to AI, Google, or nothing. Those who could use AI displayed the lowest cognitive engagement and had difficulty quoting their own work. Perhaps most troubling was that over time, participants in the AI group became increasingly reliant, copying entire blocks of text.

“Laziness and cowardice,” Kant wrote, “are the reasons why so many of men … remain in perpetual nonage.”

Of course, AI's attraction stems from its efficiency. It is fast, minimizes work and – critically – offers a novel way to abdicate 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 surrender personal freedom in exchange for the comforting security of obedience. AI presents a modern avenue for surrendering the burden of having to decide for oneself.

The Opacity Dilemma: Trust Without Understanding

AI's primary draw is its ability to accomplish things outside our minds – analyzing 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 choice she interpreted as an affront). With knowledge of real-time information, certainly the app had superior insight – or so I thought.

The core issue is that AI operates as a opaque system. It produces answers, but without necessarily deepening human comprehension. We do not truly know how AI reaches its decisions – including its programmers admit this. Nor can we check its logic against clear, objective criteria. So when we follow AI's recommendation, we are not being guided by reason. We are returning to the domain of faith. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, side with the machine – that may become our 21st-century guiding principle.

Using Without Losing: 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 handle taxes – work that are repetitive and offer little satisfaction. All to the good. But Kant and his peers did not champion reason over faith just so humans could assemble better furniture or have extra free time. Independent thought was not merely about productivity – it was a practice of freedom and human emancipation.

Human thought is inherently messy and error-prone, but it forces us to debate, to question, to challenge concepts – and to acknowledge the boundaries of our own knowledge. It fosters confidence, both individually and as a society. For Kant, the exercise of reason was never only about acquiring knowledge; it was about empowering people to become agents of their own lives, and to oppose control. It was about creating a moral community grounded in the common foundation of rational discourse, rather than unquestioning acceptance.

With all the undeniable benefits AI brings, the paramount challenge remains: how can we harness its potential of advanced capability without undermining human rationality, the bedrock of the Enlightenment and of free societies themselves? That is likely one of the central dilemmas of our century. It is a question we must strive not to delegate to the algorithm.