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This past summer, I was caught in congested traffic on the sweltering streets of a southern French city. At a crossing, my companion in the passenger seat suggested a right turn toward a renowned spot for fish soup. However, the digital guide on my phone commanded us to continue straight. Fatigued and in a stifling car, I heeded the algorithm's directive. Minutes later, we were stranded at a construction site.

A seemingly trivial incident, perhaps. But one that encapsulates a defining question of our era, where technology touches nearly every facet of our lives: whom do we trust to a greater degree – fellow humans and our own intuition, or the algorithm?

The Enlightenment's Promise and A Contemporary Backslide

The influential German philosopher Immanuel Kant once defined the Enlightenment as "humanity's emergence from its self-imposed immaturity." This state, he argued, "is the inability to use one's own understanding without guidance from another." For centuries, that guiding "other" for human thought was often the clergyman, the king, or the feudal lord – entities purporting to channel divine will. To comprehend phenomena like changing seasons, people sought answers in religion. In organizing the fabric of society, from economics to love, religious doctrine served as the primary guide.

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

Kant maintained that humans had the ability to think rationally. They simply lacked the boldness to use it. With upheavals in America and France, a fresh era arrived: reason would replace blind faith, and the intellect, freed from dogma, would become the driver of progress and a better 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 just one example. AI risks becoming our contemporary authority – a unseen guide that influences our decisions and behaviors. We are in danger of relinquishing the hard-won 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 a mere three years ago, and yet a recent study found that an overwhelming majority of respondents had engaged with artificial intelligence in the previous six months. Whether contemplating ending a relationship or choosing a candidate, individuals are looking to algorithms for counsel. Data suggests a large majority of user prompts relate to non-work topics. Even more striking than our reliance on AI for judgment is what occurs when we let it speak for us. Writing is now among the top uses for tools like ChatGPT, just behind practical requests. The celebrated American author Joan Didion famously said, “I write entirely to discover what I am thinking.” What occurs when we cease writing? Do we lose that path?

Worryingly, some evidence hints the outcome may be affirmative. 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 no aids. Those who could rely on AI displayed the least cognitive engagement and had trouble 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 lifelong immaturity.”

Of course, AI's attraction lies in its convenience. It saves time, minimizes work and – critically – offers a new method 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 human tendency to give up autonomy in for the sake of the reassuring certainty of subordination. AI offers a digital method of surrendering the weight of having to decide for oneself.

The Opacity Dilemma: Trust Without Understanding

AI's greatest allure is its ability to accomplish things beyond human capability – sifting through oceans of data at unprecedented speed. Stuck in the car in Marseille, this was, ultimately, why I opted to trust the machine over my friend (a decision she interpreted as an insult). With knowledge of all the data, certainly the app must know best – or so I believed.

The core issue is that AI operates as a opaque system. It generates knowledge, but not always deepening human comprehension. We do not truly know how AI reaches its decisions – even its programmers admit this. Nor can we verify its logic against clear, objective criteria. So when we heed AI's recommendation, we are not being led by logic. We are back in the domain of faith. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, side with the machine – that may become our 21st-century guiding principle.

Harnessing Without Eroding: The Essential Challenge

AI can be a formidable ally for humanity in scientific pursuit. It can aid in medical research, liberate us from "bullshit jobs", or handle administrative chores – duties that are repetitive and are unfulfilling. This is beneficial. But Kant and his contemporaries did not champion enlightenment just so humans could assemble better furniture or have more leisure. Critical thinking was not merely about efficiency – it was a practice of liberty and human self-determination.

Human thought is inherently messy and fallible, but it compels us to debate, to question, to challenge concepts – and to acknowledge the limits of our own understanding. It builds self-reliance, both individually and as a society. For Kant, the exercise of reason was never only about information; it was about empowering people to become authors of their own lives, and to resist domination. It was about creating a ethical society based on the common foundation of reason and debate, rather than unquestioning acceptance.

With all the undeniable benefits AI brings, the key question is this: how can we leverage its promise of superhuman intelligence without undermining human reasoning, the cornerstone of the Enlightenment and of free societies itself? That is likely one of the defining questions of our time. It is a question we must strive not to delegate to the algorithm.