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This recent season, I found myself navigating in gridlocked traffic on the scorching streets of a southern French city. At an intersection, my friend in the passenger seat advised a right turn toward a renowned spot for fish soup. However, the navigation app on my phone commanded us to continue straight. Fatigued and in a stifling car, I followed the app's advice. Minutes later, we were stranded at a roadwork site.

A minor event, perhaps. But one that encapsulates a central question of our time, where digital tools permeates 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 once defined the Enlightenment as "humanity's emergence from its self-imposed immaturity." This state, he argued, "is the incapacity to use one's own understanding without direction from an external source." For ages, that directing force for human thought was frequently the priest, the king, or the landowner – figures claiming to channel God's voice. To explain phenomena like volcanic eruptions, people looked for explanations in theology. In organizing the fabric of society, from economics to love, religious doctrine served as the main compass.

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

Kant maintained that humans had the ability to think rationally. They simply lacked the confidence to employ it. With upheavals in the 18th century, a fresh era arrived: logic would replace blind faith, and the intellect, liberated from authority, would become the driver of progress and a better world.

Now, 250 years later, one might wonder if we are slipping back into a form of dependency. An app suggesting a driving route is just one example. Artificial intelligence threatens to become our new "other" – a unseen overseer that steers our decisions and actions. We are in danger of relinquishing the hard-won courage to think independently – and now, not to deities or rulers, but to lines of code.

The Swift Adoption and Hidden Risks of Algorithmic Reliance

ChatGPT was launched a mere three years ago, and already a global survey found that an overwhelming majority of respondents had used AI in the previous six months. Whether deciding on a breakup or selecting a vote, individuals are looking to machines for guidance. Research suggests a large majority of user prompts concern non-work topics. Even more intriguing than our use of AI for advice is what occurs when we let it express for us. Writing is now among the top uses for tools like ChatGPT, just behind everyday tasks. The late American author Joan Didion once remarked, “I write entirely to discover what I am thinking.” What occurs when we cease writing? Do we cease discovering?

Worryingly, some evidence suggests the answer may be affirmative. A study conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used brain monitoring to track the mental engagement of essay writers who had could use AI, Google, or no aids. Those who could rely on AI displayed the lowest brain activity and had difficulty quoting their own work. Perhaps most concerning was that over time, individuals in the AI group grew progressively lazier, pasting large sections of text.

“Inertia and fear,” Kant wrote, “are the reasons why so great a proportion of men … stay in perpetual nonage.”

Certainly, AI's attraction lies in its convenience. It is fast, minimizes work and – critically – 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 partly explained by a human tendency to give up personal freedom in for the sake of the comforting security of subordination. AI offers a modern avenue for surrendering the burden of having to decide for oneself.

The Black Box Problem: Faith Over Reason

AI's greatest allure is its ability to perform tasks beyond our minds – analyzing oceans of data at lightning pace. Stuck in the car in Marseille, this was, after all, why I opted to trust the machine over my friend (a decision she took as an insult). With access to all the data, surely the algorithm must know best – or so I thought.

The core issue is that AI is a black box. It generates answers, but not always deepening human understanding. We cannot fully grasp the process behind its decisions – including its programmers admit this. Nor can we check its reasoning against clear, objective criteria. So when we heed AI's advice, we are not being led by logic. We are returning to the domain of faith. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, trust the machine – that could be our future credo.

Using Without Losing: The Essential Challenge

AI can be a powerful tool for humanity in scientific pursuit. It can help inventing drugs, free us from tedious tasks, or manage administrative chores – duties that are repetitive and are unfulfilling. This is beneficial. But Kant and his contemporaries did not advocate for reason over faith just so humans could assemble better furniture or have extra free time. Independent thought was not merely about productivity – it was a discipline of liberty and human self-determination.

Human thought is often chaotic and error-prone, but it compels us to debate, to question, to test ideas – and to acknowledge the limits of our own knowledge. It fosters confidence, both individually and collectively. For Kant, the use of reason was never only about acquiring knowledge; it was about empowering people to become agents of their own destinies, and to oppose control. It was about creating a moral community based on the common foundation of reason and debate, rather than blind belief.

With all the advantages AI offers, the key question remains: how can we harness its promise of superhuman intelligence without undermining human rationality, the cornerstone of the Enlightenment and of liberal democracy itself? That may be one of the central dilemmas of our time. It is a question we would do well not to outsource to the algorithm.