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This past summer, I was caught in gridlocked traffic on the sweltering streets of Marseille. At an intersection, my companion in the passenger seat advised a right turn toward a famous spot for fish soup. However, the navigation app on my phone instructed us to go forward. Fatigued and overheated, I followed the app's directive. Minutes later, we were stranded at a roadwork site.

A seemingly trivial incident, perhaps. But one that encapsulates a defining dilemma of our time, where digital tools permeates almost every aspect of our lives: whom do we trust to a greater degree – fellow humans and our personal instincts, or the algorithm?

A Call for Intellectual Maturity and Our Modern Relapse

The renowned German philosopher Immanuel Kant famously described the Enlightenment as "man's release from its self-imposed immaturity." This immaturity, he wrote, "is the inability to use one's personal reason without guidance from another." For centuries, that guiding "other" for society was often the clergyman, the king, or the feudal lord – entities purporting to channel God's voice. To explain phenomena like changing seasons, people sought answers in theology. In organizing the social world, from economics to love, faith acted as the primary guide.

“Sapere aude!” or “Dare to use your reason!”

Kant argued that humans had the capacity for reason. They simply lacked the confidence to use it. With upheavals in America and France, a fresh era emerged: reason would replace blind faith, and the intellect, freed from dogma, would become the driver of advancement and a more ethical world.

Today, 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 risks becoming our new "other" – a silent overseer that steers our decisions and actions. We risk ceding the hard-won courage to think independently – 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 yet a recent study indicated that an overwhelming majority of people had used AI in the preceding half-year. Whether contemplating a breakup or choosing a candidate, individuals are increasingly turning to algorithms for counsel. Data suggests a large majority of user queries relate to personal life matters. Even more intriguing than our use of AI for judgment 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 practical requests. The celebrated American author Joan Didion famously said, “I write entirely to discover what I am thinking.” What occurs when we stop composing? Do we lose that path?

Worryingly, emerging research suggests the outcome may be affirmative. A study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used brain monitoring to track the mental engagement of essay writers who had could use AI, Google, or nothing. Those who could rely on AI displayed the least cognitive engagement and had difficulty accurately recalling their own work. Maybe most concerning was that over time, individuals in the AI group grew progressively lazier, copying large sections of text.

“Laziness and cowardice,” 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, reduces effort and – importantly – 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 exchange for the reassuring certainty of subordination. AI presents 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 outside human capability – analyzing oceans of data at lightning pace. Sitting in the car in Marseille, this was, after all, why I opted to trust the app over my companion (a decision she took as an insult). With knowledge of real-time information, certainly the app must know best – or so I believed.

The fundamental problem is that AI operates as a opaque system. It generates answers, but without necessarily fostering human understanding. We do not truly know how AI reaches its conclusions – even its programmers acknowledge the opacity. Nor can we check its logic against clear, objective criteria. So when we heed AI's recommendation, we are not being guided by reason. We are back in the domain of faith. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, trust the machine – that could be our future guiding principle.

Using Without Losing: The Essential Challenge

AI can be a powerful tool for mankind in scientific pursuit. It can aid in medical research, free us from tedious tasks, or handle administrative chores – work that are repetitive and are unfulfilling. All to the good. But Kant and his contemporaries did not champion enlightenment just so humans could optimize chores or have extra free time. Independent thought was not merely about productivity – it was a discipline of liberty and human emancipation.

Human thought is often chaotic and error-prone, but it compels us to debate, to doubt, to test ideas – and to recognize the limits of our own knowledge. It fosters confidence, both individually and as a society. For Kant, the use of reason was never solely about information; it was about empowering people to become authors of their own destinies, and to oppose domination. It was about creating a moral community based on the common foundation of reason and debate, rather than unquestioning acceptance.

With all the advantages AI brings, the key question is this: how can we leverage its promise of superhuman intelligence without eroding human rationality, the cornerstone of the Enlightenment and of free societies itself? That is likely one of the central dilemmas of our time. It is a question we would do well not to outsource to the algorithm.