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This recent season, I was caught in congested traffic on the scorching streets of a southern French city. At a crossing, my friend in the passenger seat advised a right turn toward a famous spot for bouillabaisse. However, the navigation app on my phone commanded us to continue straight. Weary and in a stifling car, I heeded the app's directive. Minutes later, we were stranded at a construction site.

A seemingly trivial event, perhaps. But one that encapsulates a central dilemma of our era, where technology permeates almost every aspect of existence: who gets our trust more – fellow humans and our own intuition, or the algorithm?

A Call for Intellectual Maturity and Our Modern Relapse

The renowned German philosopher Immanuel Kant once defined the Enlightenment as "humanity's emergence from its self-imposed nonage." This state, he wrote, "is the incapacity to use one's personal reason without direction from another." For centuries, that guiding "other" for human thought was frequently the clergyman, the monarch, or the feudal lord – figures claiming to speak for God's voice. To explain natural events like volcanic eruptions, people looked for explanations in theology. In shaping the social world, from commerce to matters of the heart, faith served as the main compass.

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

Kant maintained that humans always possessed the capacity for reason. They simply lacked the confidence to use it. With revolutions in the 18th century, a fresh era emerged: reason would supplant blind faith, and the human mind, liberated from dogma, would become the engine of advancement and a better world.

Now, two and a half centuries later, one might question if we are quietly regressing into a state of intellectual immaturity. An app suggesting a direction is just one example. Artificial intelligence risks becoming our contemporary authority – a silent guide that steers our choices and actions. We risk ceding the hard-won autonomy to think independently – and this time, not to deities or rulers, but to lines of code.

The Swift Adoption and Hidden Risks of Algorithmic Reliance

ChatGPT was launched only in 2022, and already a global survey found that an overwhelming majority of respondents had engaged with artificial intelligence in the preceding half-year. Whether contemplating ending a relationship or selecting a vote, individuals are increasingly turning to algorithms for counsel. Research suggests a significant portion of user queries relate to non-work topics. Even more intriguing than our use of AI for advice is what happens when we let it speak for us. Writing is now one of the top uses for generative AI, second only to practical requests. The celebrated American author Joan Didion famously said, “I write entirely to find out what I am thinking.” What occurs when we cease writing? Do we cease discovering?

Worryingly, emerging research suggests the outcome may be affirmative. A study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used electroencephalography to observe the cognitive activity of essay writers who had access to AI, traditional search engines, or nothing. Those who could rely on AI displayed the least brain activity and had trouble quoting their own work. Maybe most troubling was that over time, participants in the AI group became increasingly reliant, copying entire blocks of text.

“Laziness and cowardice,” Kant wrote, “are the reasons why so great a proportion of men … remain in perpetual nonage.”

Of course, AI's attraction stems from its efficiency. It is fast, minimizes work and – importantly – offers a new method to offload accountability. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm proposed that the appeal of authoritarianism could be partly explained by a human tendency to give up autonomy in for the sake of the comforting security of subordination. AI offers a digital method of relinquishing the weight of having to decide for oneself.

The Black Box Problem: Trust Without Understanding

AI's primary draw is its ability to perform tasks outside our minds – sifting through oceans of data at unprecedented speed. Stuck in the car in Marseille, this was, ultimately, why I chose to believe the app over my companion (a decision she took as an affront). With access to real-time information, surely the algorithm had superior insight – or so I believed.

The core issue is that AI operates as a black box. It produces answers, but without necessarily fostering human understanding. We cannot fully grasp how AI reaches its conclusions – including its creators admit this. Nor can we check its reasoning against clear, objective criteria. So when we heed AI's advice, we are not being guided by reason. We are back in the domain of belief. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, side with the machine – that could be our future credo.

Using Without Losing: The Critical Balance

AI can be a formidable ally for mankind in scientific pursuit. It can aid in inventing drugs, free us from "bullshit jobs", or manage administrative chores – work that are repetitive and offer little satisfaction. All to the good. But Kant and his contemporaries did not champion enlightenment just so humans could assemble better furniture or have more leisure. Critical thinking was not just about productivity – it was a discipline of freedom and human emancipation.

Human thought is inherently messy and error-prone, but it compels us to argue, to question, to test ideas – and to acknowledge the boundaries of our own understanding. It fosters self-reliance, both individually and as a society. For Kant, the exercise of reason was never only about information; it was about enabling people to become agents of their own lives, and to resist control. It was about building a ethical society based on the shared principle of reason and debate, rather than unquestioning acceptance.

With all the advantages AI offers, the key question is this: how can we harness its potential of superhuman intelligence without undermining human reasoning, the bedrock of the Enlightenment and of free societies itself? That may be one of the central dilemmas of our century. It is a question we must strive not to outsource to the machine.