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This recent season, I was caught in congested traffic on the sweltering streets of a southern French city. At a crossing, my companion in the passenger seat suggested a right turn toward a renowned spot for bouillabaisse. However, the digital guide on my phone instructed us to continue straight. Fatigued and overheated, I followed the algorithm's advice. Moments later, we were stranded at a roadwork site.

A seemingly trivial event, perhaps. But one that encapsulates a defining dilemma of our time, where technology touches almost every aspect of existence: who gets our trust to a greater degree – other people and our own intuition, or the algorithm?

The Enlightenment's Promise and Our Modern Relapse

The renowned German philosopher Immanuel Kant famously described the Enlightenment as "humanity's emergence from its self-inflicted immaturity." This immaturity, he wrote, "represents the incapacity to use one's personal reason without direction from an external source." For centuries, that directing force for human thought was often the priest, the monarch, or the feudal lord – entities purporting to speak for divine will. To explain natural events like changing seasons, people looked for explanations in religion. In organizing the social world, from economics to love, faith acted as the primary guide.

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

Kant maintained that humans had the capacity for reason. They simply lacked the boldness to employ it. With revolutions in America and France, a fresh era arrived: reason would replace blind faith, and the human mind, freed from dogma, would become the driver of progress and a more ethical world.

Today, two and a half centuries later, one might wonder if we are quietly regressing into a form of dependency. An app suggesting a direction is just one example. Artificial intelligence threatens to become our contemporary authority – a silent guide that steers our decisions and behaviors. We risk ceding the hard-won courage to reason for ourselves – and now, not to gods or kings, but to lines of code.

The Swift Adoption and Hidden Risks of AI Dependence

ChatGPT debuted only in 2022, and already a global survey indicated that an vast number of people had engaged with artificial intelligence in the preceding half-year. Whether contemplating a breakup or choosing a candidate, individuals are looking to machines for guidance. Data suggests a significant portion of user queries relate to personal life matters. Even more striking than our reliance on AI for advice is what occurs when we let it express for us. Writing is now among the top uses for generative AI, second only to practical requests. The celebrated American author Joan Didion once remarked, “I write purely to find out what I am thinking.” What transpires when we cease writing? Do we lose that path?

Worryingly, emerging research suggests the outcome may be yes. A study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used brain monitoring to track the cognitive activity of participants who had access to AI, Google, or no aids. Those who could rely on AI displayed the lowest cognitive engagement and had trouble quoting their own work. Perhaps most concerning was that after a few months, participants in the AI group grew progressively lazier, copying large sections of text.

“Inertia and fear,” Kant wrote, “are the reasons why so many of men … remain in perpetual nonage.”

Of course, AI's appeal stems from its efficiency. It saves time, minimizes work and – importantly – offers a novel way 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 preference to give up personal freedom in for the sake of the comforting security of subordination. AI presents a modern avenue for relinquishing the weight of having to decide for oneself.

The Opacity Dilemma: Faith Over Reason

AI's greatest allure is its capacity to accomplish things outside human capability – analyzing oceans of data at unprecedented speed. Sitting 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 knowledge of real-time information, certainly the app must know best – or so I believed.

The fundamental problem is that AI is a opaque system. It produces knowledge, but without necessarily fostering human understanding. We cannot fully grasp how AI reaches its decisions – including its creators acknowledge the opacity. Nor can we check its logic against transparent standards. So when we follow 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 may become our future credo.

Harnessing Without Eroding: The Essential Challenge

AI can be a formidable ally for humanity in scientific pursuit. It can aid in inventing drugs, free us from tedious tasks, or manage taxes – work that are repetitive and offer little satisfaction. This is beneficial. But Kant and his peers did not advocate for reason over faith just so humans could optimize chores or have extra free time. Critical thinking was not just about efficiency – it was a discipline of freedom and human emancipation.

Human thought is inherently messy and fallible, but it forces us to debate, to doubt, to test ideas – and to recognize the limits of our own understanding. It builds confidence, both personally and as a society. For Kant, the use of reason was never only about acquiring knowledge; it was about empowering people to become authors of their own destinies, and to oppose control. It was about building a ethical society grounded in the shared principle of rational discourse, rather than unquestioning acceptance.

With all the advantages AI offers, the key question remains: how can we harness its promise of advanced capability without eroding human rationality, the cornerstone of the Enlightenment and of free societies itself? That may be one of the defining questions of our time. It is a question we must strive not to outsource to the machine.