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This past summer, I found myself navigating in gridlocked traffic on the scorching streets of a southern French city. At a crossing, my friend in the front seat advised a right turn toward a famous spot for fish soup. However, the navigation app on my phone commanded us to go forward. Fatigued and overheated, I followed the app's advice. Minutes later, we were stranded at a roadwork site.

A minor incident, maybe. But one that encapsulates a defining question of our era, where technology permeates nearly every facet of existence: whom do we trust to a greater degree – other people and our personal instincts, or the algorithm?

A Call for Intellectual Maturity and Our Modern Relapse

The influential German philosopher Immanuel Kant once defined the Enlightenment as "humanity's emergence from its self-inflicted immaturity." This state, he argued, "represents the inability to use one's personal reason without guidance from another." For centuries, that directing force for human thought was frequently the clergyman, the king, or the landowner – figures claiming to channel divine will. To comprehend phenomena like changing seasons, people sought answers in religion. In organizing the social world, from commerce to matters of the heart, religious doctrine acted as the primary guide.

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

Kant maintained that humans always possessed the ability to think rationally. They just didn't have the confidence to employ it. With revolutions in America and France, a new dawn emerged: logic would supplant superstition, and the intellect, liberated from dogma, would become the engine of progress and a more ethical world.

Now, two and a half centuries later, one might wonder if we are slipping back into a state of dependency. An app dictating a direction is merely the start. Artificial intelligence risks becoming our new "other" – a unseen overseer that influences our decisions and behaviors. We risk ceding the historically earned courage to think independently – and this time, not to gods or kings, but to lines of code.

The Rapid Rise and Hidden Risks of Algorithmic Reliance

ChatGPT debuted only in 2022, and already a recent study found that an vast number of people had used AI in the previous six months. Whether contemplating ending a relationship or selecting a vote, individuals are looking to algorithms for counsel. Research suggests a significant portion of user prompts relate to non-work topics. Even more intriguing than our reliance on AI for judgment is what occurs when we let it express for us. Writing is now among the top uses for generative AI, just behind everyday tasks. The late American author Joan Didion famously said, “I write purely to discover what I am thinking.” What occurs when we cease writing? Do we cease discovering?

Alarmingly, some evidence hints the answer may be yes. A study conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used brain monitoring to observe the mental engagement of essay writers who had could use AI, traditional search engines, or no aids. Those who could rely on AI showed the least cognitive engagement and had trouble accurately recalling their own work. Maybe most concerning was that over time, individuals in the AI group became increasingly reliant, pasting large sections of text.

“Inertia and fear,” Kant wrote, “are the reasons why so great a proportion of men … stay 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 proposed that the rise of fascism could be understood by a preference to surrender personal freedom in for the sake of the reassuring certainty of obedience. AI offers a digital avenue for surrendering the burden of having to decide for oneself.

The Black Box Problem: Faith Over Reason

AI's primary draw is its capacity to accomplish things beyond our minds – sifting through vast datasets at lightning pace. Stuck in the car in Marseille, this was, after all, why I chose to trust the app over my companion (a decision she interpreted as an affront). With knowledge of all the data, certainly the app had superior insight – or so I thought.

The fundamental problem is that AI operates as a opaque system. It generates answers, but not always deepening human understanding. We cannot fully grasp how AI reaches its decisions – even its programmers admit this. Nor can we check its reasoning against transparent standards. So when we heed AI's advice, we are not being led by logic. We are back in the domain of faith. 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 humanity in scientific pursuit. It can help medical research, liberate us from "bullshit jobs", or handle administrative chores – duties that are repetitive and offer little satisfaction. This is beneficial. But Kant and his peers did not advocate for enlightenment just so humans could assemble better furniture or have extra free time. Critical thinking was not merely about efficiency – it was a practice of liberty and human emancipation.

Human thought is inherently messy and error-prone, but it forces us to argue, to doubt, to test ideas – and to acknowledge the boundaries of our own understanding. It builds self-reliance, 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 authors of their own lives, and to oppose domination. It was about creating a ethical society based on the common foundation of reason and debate, rather than blind belief.

With all the undeniable benefits AI brings, the key question is this: how can we leverage its promise of advanced capability without undermining human rationality, the cornerstone of the Enlightenment and of free societies itself? That may be one of the defining questions of our century. It is a question we would do well not to outsource to the algorithm.