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This past summer, I found myself navigating in congested traffic on the scorching streets of a southern French city. At an intersection, my companion in the front seat advised a right turn toward a famous spot for bouillabaisse. However, the digital guide on my phone commanded us to continue straight. Weary and overheated, I heeded the algorithm's directive. Minutes later, we were stranded at a construction site.

A seemingly trivial event, maybe. But one that encapsulates a defining dilemma of our era, where technology permeates almost every aspect of our lives: whom do we trust to a greater degree – fellow humans and our own intuition, or the machine?

A Call for Intellectual Maturity and A Contemporary Backslide

The influential German philosopher Immanuel Kant famously described the Enlightenment as "man's release from its self-inflicted immaturity." This state, he wrote, "is the incapacity to use one's personal reason without guidance from an external source." For ages, that guiding "other" for human thought was frequently the clergyman, the king, or the landowner – entities claiming to channel divine will. To comprehend phenomena like volcanic eruptions, people sought answers in religion. In organizing the fabric of society, from commerce to matters of the heart, religious doctrine served as the main compass.

“Sapere aude!” or “Dare to use your own understanding!”

Kant argued that humans always possessed the capacity for reason. They just didn't have the boldness to employ it. With revolutions in America and France, a fresh era emerged: logic would supplant blind faith, and the intellect, liberated from dogma, would become the engine of advancement and a better world.

Today, two and a half centuries later, one might question if we are slipping back into a form of intellectual immaturity. An app dictating a direction is just one example. AI risks becoming our new "other" – a unseen overseer that steers our decisions and actions. We risk relinquishing the historically earned courage to reason for ourselves – and this time, not to deities or rulers, but to lines of code.

The Swift Adoption and Hidden Risks of AI Dependence

ChatGPT was launched only in 2022, and already a recent study found that an overwhelming majority of respondents had engaged with artificial intelligence in the previous six months. Whether contemplating ending a relationship or selecting a vote, individuals are looking to machines for counsel. Data suggests a significant portion of user queries relate to non-work topics. Even more intriguing than our reliance on AI for advice is what occurs when we allow it express for us. Composition is now among the most common uses for tools like ChatGPT, second only to practical requests. The celebrated American author Joan Didion once remarked, “I write entirely to discover what I am thinking.” What transpires when we stop composing? Do we lose that path?

Alarmingly, emerging research hints the outcome may be yes. A study conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used brain monitoring to track the mental engagement of participants who had access to AI, traditional search engines, or nothing. Those who could rely on AI displayed the lowest cognitive engagement and had trouble accurately recalling their own work. Perhaps most concerning was that after a few months, participants in the AI group grew progressively lazier, copying entire blocks of text.

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

Of course, AI's appeal lies in its convenience. It saves time, reduces effort and – critically – offers a new method to offload responsibility. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm argued that the appeal of authoritarianism could be partly explained by a human tendency to surrender autonomy in for the sake of the comforting security of obedience. AI presents a digital method of relinquishing the weight of having to think and choose.

The Black Box Problem: Trust Without Understanding

AI's greatest allure is its ability to perform tasks outside human capability – sifting through oceans of data at unprecedented speed. Sitting in the car in Marseille, this was, after all, why I chose to believe the app over my companion (a choice she took as an insult). With knowledge of real-time information, surely the app must know best – or so I thought.

The fundamental problem is that AI is a black box. It produces answers, but without necessarily fostering human understanding. We cannot fully grasp the process behind its conclusions – even its creators acknowledge the opacity. Nor can we verify its logic against transparent standards. So when we follow AI's recommendation, we are not being guided by reason. We are returning to the realm of belief. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, trust the machine – that may become our future guiding principle.

Using Without Losing: The Critical Balance

AI can be a formidable ally for humanity in scientific pursuit. It can help medical research, liberate us from tedious tasks, or manage administrative chores – work that demand little thought and offer little satisfaction. This is beneficial. But Kant and his contemporaries did not champion reason over faith just so humans could optimize chores or have extra free time. Independent thought was not just about productivity – it was a practice of freedom and human emancipation.

Human thought is inherently messy and fallible, but it compels us to argue, to doubt, to test ideas – and to recognize the limits of our own understanding. It fosters confidence, both personally and as a society. For Kant, the use of reason was never solely about acquiring knowledge; it was about empowering people to become agents of their own destinies, and to resist control. It was about creating a ethical society based on the common foundation of rational discourse, rather than blind belief.

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 bedrock 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 delegate to the machine.