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This past summer, I was caught in gridlocked traffic on the sweltering streets of a southern French city. At an intersection, my companion in the passenger seat advised a right turn toward a renowned spot for bouillabaisse. However, the navigation app on my phone commanded us to continue straight. Fatigued and overheated, I heeded the app's directive. Minutes later, we were stranded at a roadwork site.

A minor incident, perhaps. But one that encapsulates a defining dilemma of our era, where digital tools permeates almost every aspect of existence: who gets our trust more – other people and our personal instincts, or the machine?

The Enlightenment's Promise and Our Modern Relapse

The influential German philosopher Immanuel Kant famously described the Enlightenment as "humanity's emergence from its self-imposed immaturity." This state, he argued, "is the incapacity to use one's own understanding without direction from another." For ages, that directing force for society was often the priest, the monarch, or the landowner – entities claiming to channel divine will. To comprehend natural events like volcanic eruptions, people looked for explanations in theology. In organizing the social world, from commerce to love, faith acted as the primary guide.

“Sapere aude!” or “Dare to use your own understanding!”

Kant maintained that humans always possessed the capacity for reason. They simply lacked the confidence to employ it. With revolutions in the 18th century, a fresh era arrived: reason would supplant superstition, and the human mind, liberated 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 intellectual immaturity. An app suggesting a direction is just one example. AI threatens to become our contemporary authority – a silent guide that influences our decisions and actions. We are in danger of relinquishing the hard-won courage to reason for ourselves – and this time, not to deities or rulers, but to computer programs.

The Rapid Rise and Subtle Dangers of AI Dependence

ChatGPT debuted only in 2022, and already a recent study found that an vast number of respondents 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 counsel. Research suggests a large majority of user queries relate to non-work topics. Even more striking than our reliance on AI for judgment is what happens when we let it speak for us. Writing is now one of the top uses for tools like ChatGPT, just behind everyday tasks. The late American author Joan Didion famously said, “I write entirely to discover what I am thinking.” What occurs when we stop composing? Do we cease discovering?

Worryingly, some evidence hints the answer may be yes. A study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used brain monitoring to track the cognitive activity of participants who had could use AI, traditional search engines, or nothing. Those who could use AI showed the least cognitive engagement and had trouble quoting their own work. Maybe most troubling was that after a few months, participants in the AI group grew progressively lazier, pasting 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 convenience. It is fast, reduces effort and – critically – offers a new method to offload responsibility. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm proposed that the rise of fascism could be understood by a human tendency to surrender personal freedom in exchange for the comforting security of subordination. AI offers a digital method of relinquishing the weight of having to think and choose.

The Opacity Dilemma: Faith Over Reason

AI's greatest allure is its capacity to accomplish things outside human capability – sifting through vast datasets at unprecedented speed. Stuck in the car in Marseille, this was, after all, why I opted to believe the machine over my companion (a decision she took as an insult). With access to all the data, certainly the app had superior insight – or so I believed.

The core issue is that AI is a opaque system. It generates knowledge, but not always deepening human understanding. We cannot fully grasp how AI reaches its conclusions – even its creators admit this. Nor can we check its logic against clear, objective criteria. So when we heed AI's recommendation, we are not being led by logic. We are returning to the realm of belief. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, side with the machine – that could be our 21st-century guiding principle.

Using Without Losing: The Critical Balance

AI can be a powerful tool for humanity in rational inquiry. It can help inventing drugs, free us from "bullshit jobs", or handle administrative chores – duties that are repetitive and offer little satisfaction. This is beneficial. But Kant and his contemporaries did not advocate for reason over faith just so humans could optimize chores or have more leisure. Independent thought was not just about productivity – it was a discipline of freedom and human self-determination.

Human thought is inherently messy and error-prone, but it forces us to argue, to doubt, to challenge concepts – and to recognize the boundaries of our own knowledge. It builds self-reliance, both personally 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 resist control. It was about creating a ethical society based on the shared principle of reason and debate, rather than unquestioning acceptance.

With all the advantages AI brings, the key question is this: how can we harness its potential of superhuman intelligence without undermining human rationality, the bedrock of the Enlightenment and of liberal democracy themselves? That is likely one of the central dilemmas of our time. It is a question we must strive not to outsource to the machine.