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This recent season, I found myself navigating in congested traffic on the scorching streets of Marseille. At an intersection, my companion in the passenger seat suggested a right turn toward a renowned spot for fish soup. However, the digital guide on my phone instructed us to go forward. Fatigued and in a stifling car, I heeded the algorithm's directive. Moments later, we were stranded at a construction site.

A seemingly trivial incident, maybe. But one that encapsulates a defining question of our era, where digital tools touches nearly every facet of our lives: who gets our trust to a greater degree – fellow humans and our own intuition, or the machine?

A Call for Intellectual Maturity and A Contemporary Backslide

The renowned German philosopher Immanuel Kant famously described the Enlightenment as "humanity's emergence from its self-imposed nonage." This immaturity, he wrote, "is the inability to use one's own understanding without guidance from an external source." For ages, that guiding "other" for human thought was frequently the priest, the monarch, or the feudal lord – figures purporting to channel God's voice. To explain natural events like changing seasons, people sought answers in religion. In organizing the social world, from economics to love, faith acted as the main compass.

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

Kant argued that humans always possessed the ability to think rationally. They simply lacked the boldness to employ it. With revolutions in the 18th century, a fresh era arrived: reason would replace blind faith, and the intellect, freed from dogma, would become the driver of advancement and a better world.

Today, 250 years later, one might wonder if we are slipping back into a state of dependency. An app dictating a direction is merely the start. AI risks becoming our new "other" – a silent overseer that steers our decisions and behaviors. We are in danger of ceding the historically earned autonomy to reason for ourselves – and this time, not to gods or kings, but to computer programs.

The Rapid Rise and Hidden Risks of Algorithmic Reliance

ChatGPT debuted a mere three years ago, and already a recent study indicated that an vast number of people had engaged with artificial intelligence in the preceding half-year. Whether deciding on a breakup or choosing a candidate, individuals are looking to machines for guidance. Data suggests a large majority of user queries concern personal life matters. Even more intriguing than our reliance on AI for judgment is what occurs when we allow it speak for us. Composition is now among the most common uses for generative AI, just behind everyday tasks. The celebrated American author Joan Didion once remarked, “I write purely to discover what I am thinking.” What occurs when we cease writing? Do we cease discovering?

Worryingly, some evidence suggests the outcome may be affirmative. A study conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used electroencephalography to observe the mental engagement of essay writers who had could use AI, Google, or no aids. Those who could use AI showed the least cognitive engagement and had difficulty 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 lifelong immaturity.”

Certainly, AI's attraction lies in its efficiency. It is fast, reduces effort and – critically – offers a new method to abdicate responsibility. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm argued that the appeal of authoritarianism could be understood by a preference to surrender autonomy in for the sake of the reassuring certainty of obedience. AI offers a modern method of relinquishing the weight of having to decide for oneself.

The Opacity Dilemma: Faith Over Reason

AI's greatest allure is its capacity to perform tasks beyond human capability – sifting through vast datasets at unprecedented speed. Sitting in the car in Marseille, this was, ultimately, why I opted to believe the app over my friend (a decision she interpreted as an insult). With knowledge of all the data, surely the app must know best – or so I believed.

The core issue is that AI is a opaque system. It generates answers, but not always deepening human comprehension. We cannot fully grasp how AI reaches its conclusions – including its programmers acknowledge the opacity. Nor can we check its reasoning against transparent standards. So when we follow AI's advice, we are not being led by logic. We are back in the domain of belief. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, side with the machine – that could be our future guiding principle.

Harnessing Without Eroding: The Essential Challenge

AI can be a powerful tool for mankind in rational inquiry. It can help inventing drugs, liberate us from "bullshit jobs", or manage taxes – work that demand little thought and offer little satisfaction. This is beneficial. But Kant and his contemporaries did not advocate for reason over faith just so humans could assemble better furniture or have extra free time. Critical thinking was not just about efficiency – it was a discipline of freedom and human self-determination.

Human thought is often chaotic and fallible, but it compels us to debate, to question, to test ideas – and to recognize the limits of our own knowledge. It fosters confidence, both individually and collectively. For Kant, the use of reason was never solely about information; it was about empowering people to become authors of their own lives, and to resist control. It was about creating a ethical society grounded in the common foundation of rational discourse, rather than blind belief.

With all the undeniable benefits AI brings, the paramount challenge remains: how can we harness its promise of superhuman intelligence without eroding human reasoning, the bedrock of the Enlightenment and of liberal democracy themselves? That may be one of the central dilemmas of our century. It is a question we would do well not to delegate to the machine.