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This recent season, I found myself navigating in gridlocked traffic on the scorching streets of Marseille. At an intersection, my companion in the front seat advised 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 app's directive. Minutes later, we were stranded at a roadwork site.

A minor incident, maybe. But one that captures a central question of our time, where technology permeates nearly every facet of existence: who gets our trust to a greater degree – other people and our own intuition, or the machine?

The Enlightenment's Promise and Our Modern Relapse

The renowned German philosopher Immanuel Kant once defined the Enlightenment as "man's release from its self-imposed nonage." This immaturity, he wrote, "is the inability to use one's personal reason without direction from an external source." For ages, that directing force for society was frequently the clergyman, the king, or the feudal lord – figures claiming to speak for God's voice. To explain natural events like changing seasons, people looked for explanations in theology. In shaping the social world, from economics to matters of the heart, faith acted as the main compass.

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

Kant argued that humans always possessed the ability to think rationally. They simply lacked the confidence to use it. With revolutions in the 18th century, a fresh era arrived: logic would supplant blind faith, and the human mind, freed from dogma, would become the driver of advancement and a better world.

Now, two and a half centuries later, one might wonder if we are slipping back into a form of intellectual immaturity. An app dictating a driving route is merely the start. AI threatens to become our new "other" – a unseen overseer that influences our decisions and behaviors. We risk relinquishing the historically earned autonomy to reason for ourselves – and this time, not to deities or rulers, but to computer programs.

The Rapid Rise and Hidden Risks of Algorithmic Reliance

ChatGPT debuted only in 2022, and already a recent study found that an overwhelming majority of people had used AI in the previous six months. Whether deciding on a breakup or selecting a vote, individuals are looking to algorithms for counsel. Research suggests a significant portion of user queries concern non-work topics. Even more striking than our use of AI for judgment is what happens when we let it express for us. Writing is now among the top uses for generative AI, just behind everyday tasks. The celebrated American author Joan Didion famously said, “I write entirely to discover what I am thinking.” What transpires when we stop composing? Do we cease discovering?

Worryingly, emerging research hints the answer may be yes. A study conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used electroencephalography to observe the cognitive activity of essay writers who had access to AI, Google, or nothing. Those who could rely on AI showed the least cognitive engagement and had difficulty quoting their own work. Perhaps most concerning was that over time, 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 … remain in lifelong immaturity.”

Certainly, AI's appeal lies in its efficiency. It is fast, minimizes work and – importantly – offers a novel way to abdicate accountability. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm argued that the rise of fascism could be partly explained 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 think and choose.

The Opacity Dilemma: Faith Over Reason

AI's greatest allure is its ability to perform tasks beyond our minds – analyzing oceans of data at lightning pace. Sitting in the car in Marseille, this was, ultimately, why I chose to trust the machine over my friend (a decision she interpreted as an affront). With knowledge of real-time information, surely the app had superior insight – or so I thought.

The fundamental problem is that AI is a black box. It generates answers, but without necessarily fostering human comprehension. We cannot fully grasp the process behind its decisions – even its programmers admit this. Nor can we check its reasoning against clear, objective criteria. So when we follow AI's advice, we are not being guided by reason. We are returning to the realm of faith. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, side with the machine – that could be our 21st-century credo.

Harnessing Without Eroding: The Critical Balance

AI can be a powerful tool for mankind in rational inquiry. It can help inventing drugs, free us from tedious tasks, or manage taxes – duties that demand little thought and are unfulfilling. All to the good. But Kant and his contemporaries did not champion enlightenment just so humans could assemble better furniture or have more leisure. Independent thought was not just about efficiency – it was a practice of liberty and human self-determination.

Human thought is inherently messy and error-prone, but it forces us to argue, to doubt, to test ideas – and to acknowledge the limits of our own knowledge. It fosters self-reliance, both individually and as a society. For Kant, the use of reason was never only about acquiring knowledge; it was about enabling people to become authors of their own destinies, and to resist control. It was about creating a moral community grounded in the common foundation of reason and debate, rather than unquestioning acceptance.

With all the undeniable benefits AI brings, the paramount challenge remains: how can we harness its potential of superhuman intelligence without eroding human rationality, the bedrock of the Enlightenment and of liberal democracy themselves? That is likely one of the defining questions of our time. It is a question we would do well not to outsource to the algorithm.