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This past summer, I found myself navigating in congested traffic on the sweltering streets of Marseille. At an intersection, my friend in the passenger seat advised a right turn toward a famous spot for fish soup. However, the navigation app on my phone commanded us to go forward. Weary 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 captures a central question of our era, where technology touches 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-inflicted immaturity." This state, he argued, "is the inability to use one's personal reason without guidance from an external source." For ages, that guiding "other" for human thought was often the clergyman, the monarch, or the feudal lord – figures purporting to channel divine will. To comprehend phenomena like changing seasons, people looked for explanations in theology. In organizing the fabric of society, from commerce to love, faith acted as the primary guide.

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

Kant maintained that humans always possessed the ability to think rationally. They just didn't have the boldness to use it. With revolutions in America and France, a fresh era arrived: logic would supplant blind faith, and the human mind, liberated from dogma, would become the engine of advancement and a more ethical world.

Today, 250 years later, one might question if we are quietly regressing into a state of intellectual immaturity. An app dictating a driving route is just one example. Artificial intelligence threatens to become our contemporary authority – a unseen guide that influences our decisions and behaviors. We risk ceding the historically earned autonomy to reason for ourselves – and this time, not to deities or rulers, but to computer programs.

The Swift Adoption and Hidden Risks of AI Dependence

ChatGPT was launched only in 2022, and yet a global survey indicated that an overwhelming majority of people had used AI in the preceding half-year. Whether contemplating a breakup or selecting a vote, individuals are increasingly turning to machines for counsel. Data suggests a significant portion of user prompts concern non-work topics. Even more striking than our use of AI for advice is what occurs when we allow it speak for us. Writing is now among the most common uses for tools like ChatGPT, second only to practical requests. The late American author Joan Didion once remarked, “I write entirely to discover what I am thinking.” What occurs when we stop composing? Do we cease discovering?

Worryingly, some evidence suggests the answer may be affirmative. A study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used electroencephalography to track the cognitive activity of essay writers who had access to AI, Google, or no aids. Those who could rely on AI displayed the least brain activity and had difficulty quoting their own work. Perhaps most concerning was that after a few months, participants in the AI group became increasingly reliant, pasting entire blocks of text.

“Laziness and cowardice,” Kant wrote, “are the reasons why so great a proportion of men … stay in lifelong immaturity.”

Certainly, AI's attraction stems from its convenience. It is fast, minimizes work and – critically – offers a novel way to offload accountability. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm argued that the appeal of authoritarianism could be understood by a human tendency to surrender autonomy in for the sake of the reassuring certainty of obedience. AI presents a digital avenue for relinquishing the weight of having to decide for oneself.

The Opacity Dilemma: Faith Over Reason

AI's greatest allure is its ability to perform tasks beyond our minds – analyzing oceans of data at unprecedented speed. Stuck in the car in Marseille, this was, after all, why I opted to trust the app over my companion (a choice she took as an affront). With access to real-time information, surely the app must know best – or so I believed.

The fundamental problem is that AI operates as a black box. It generates knowledge, but without necessarily fostering human comprehension. We cannot fully grasp how AI reaches its decisions – including its creators acknowledge the opacity. Nor can we check its reasoning against transparent standards. So when we heed AI's recommendation, we are not being guided by reason. We are back in the realm of belief. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, trust the machine – that could be our 21st-century credo.

Using Without Losing: The Critical Balance

AI can be a formidable ally for mankind in rational inquiry. It can help inventing drugs, free us from tedious tasks, or manage administrative chores – duties that demand little thought and offer little satisfaction. All to the good. But Kant and his contemporaries did not champion reason over faith just so humans could assemble better furniture or have extra free time. 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 compels us to argue, to doubt, to test ideas – and to recognize the boundaries of our own knowledge. It fosters confidence, both personally and as a society. For Kant, the exercise of reason was never only about acquiring knowledge; it was about enabling people to become agents of their own lives, and to resist control. It was about creating a ethical society grounded in the shared principle of rational discourse, rather than blind belief.

With all the undeniable benefits AI offers, the key question remains: how can we leverage its promise of advanced capability without undermining human reasoning, the bedrock of the Enlightenment and of liberal democracy themselves? That is likely one of the central dilemmas of our century. It is a question we must strive not to outsource to the machine.