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This recent season, I found myself navigating in gridlocked 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 fish soup. However, the digital guide on my phone instructed us to continue straight. Weary and overheated, I heeded the algorithm's advice. Minutes later, we were stranded at a roadwork site.

A seemingly trivial incident, maybe. But one that captures a defining question of our era, where digital tools touches almost every aspect of our lives: whom do we trust to a greater degree – other people and our own intuition, or the algorithm?

A Call for Intellectual Maturity and A Contemporary Backslide

The influential German philosopher Immanuel Kant famously described the Enlightenment as "man's release from its self-inflicted nonage." This state, he wrote, "is the inability to use one's personal reason without guidance from another." For ages, that guiding "other" for human thought was often the clergyman, the monarch, or the feudal lord – figures claiming to speak for divine will. To explain phenomena like volcanic eruptions, people looked for explanations in religion. In shaping the fabric of society, from commerce to matters of the heart, faith served as the main compass.

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

Kant maintained that humans always possessed the ability to think rationally. They simply lacked the confidence to use it. With upheavals in the 18th century, a fresh era arrived: logic would replace superstition, and the human mind, freed from authority, would become the driver of progress and a more ethical world.

Today, two and a half centuries later, one might wonder if we are slipping back into a state of dependency. An app suggesting a direction is just one example. AI risks becoming our new "other" – a silent overseer that steers our decisions and actions. We are in danger of ceding the hard-won autonomy to reason for ourselves – and now, not to deities or rulers, but to computer programs.

The Rapid Rise and Subtle Dangers of AI Dependence

ChatGPT debuted only in 2022, and yet a global survey found that an vast number of respondents had used AI in the previous six months. Whether contemplating a breakup or choosing a candidate, individuals are looking to machines for counsel. Research suggests a large majority 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. Writing is now one of the most common uses for tools like ChatGPT, just behind everyday tasks. The celebrated American author Joan Didion famously said, “I write purely to find out what I am thinking.” What occurs when we cease writing? Do we lose that path?

Alarmingly, some evidence suggests 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 nothing. Those who could use AI displayed the least brain activity and had difficulty quoting their own work. Perhaps most concerning was that after a few months, participants in the AI group grew increasingly reliant, copying entire blocks of text.

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

Of course, AI's attraction stems from its convenience. It saves time, reduces effort and – critically – offers a novel way to offload responsibility. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm argued that the rise of fascism could be partly explained by a preference to surrender autonomy in exchange for the reassuring certainty of obedience. AI presents a modern avenue for relinquishing the weight 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 vast datasets at unprecedented speed. Sitting in the car in Marseille, this was, ultimately, why I opted to trust the app over my companion (a decision she took as an affront). With access to all the data, surely the app must know best – or so I believed.

The fundamental problem is that AI is a opaque system. It generates knowledge, but without necessarily fostering human comprehension. We do not truly know how AI reaches its decisions – even its creators admit this. Nor can we check its logic against clear, objective criteria. 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, side with the machine – that may become our future credo.

Harnessing Without Eroding: The Critical Balance

AI can be a formidable ally for humanity in rational inquiry. It can help inventing drugs, free us from tedious tasks, or manage administrative chores – work that are repetitive and are unfulfilling. All to the good. But Kant and his peers did not champion enlightenment just so humans could assemble better furniture or have extra free time. Critical thinking was not merely about efficiency – it was a discipline of liberty and human self-determination.

Human thought is often chaotic and fallible, but it forces us to debate, to doubt, to challenge concepts – and to acknowledge the boundaries of our own understanding. It fosters self-reliance, both individually and collectively. For Kant, the use of reason was never solely about information; it was about enabling people to become authors of their own lives, and to oppose domination. It was about building a ethical society grounded in the common foundation of reason and debate, rather than unquestioning acceptance.

With all the advantages AI offers, the paramount challenge is this: how can we leverage its promise of superhuman intelligence without eroding human reasoning, the cornerstone of the Enlightenment and of liberal democracy itself? That may be one of the defining questions of our century. It is a question we must strive not to outsource to the algorithm.