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This past summer, I found myself navigating in gridlocked traffic on the sweltering 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. Yet, the digital guide on my phone commanded us to go forward. Fatigued and in a stifling car, I followed the algorithm's advice. Moments later, we were stranded at a roadwork site.

A seemingly trivial event, perhaps. But one that captures a defining 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 machine?

A Call for Intellectual Maturity and A Contemporary Backslide

The influential German philosopher Immanuel Kant once defined the Enlightenment as "man's release from its self-imposed immaturity." This state, he wrote, "represents the incapacity to use one's own understanding without guidance from another." For centuries, that guiding "other" for human thought was often the clergyman, the monarch, or the landowner – figures purporting to speak for God's voice. To explain phenomena like changing seasons, people sought answers in theology. In shaping the social world, from commerce to matters of the heart, religious doctrine acted as the primary guide.

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

Kant argued that humans always possessed the capacity for reason. They simply lacked the boldness to use it. With upheavals in the 18th century, a new dawn arrived: reason would replace blind faith, and the human mind, freed from authority, would become the driver of progress and a better 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 threatens to become our new "other" – a unseen guide that steers our choices and behaviors. We are in danger of ceding the historically earned autonomy to reason for ourselves – and now, not to deities or rulers, but to computer programs.

The Swift Adoption and Hidden Risks of AI Dependence

ChatGPT debuted a mere three years ago, and yet a recent study indicated that an overwhelming majority of respondents had used AI in the previous six months. Whether deciding on a breakup or choosing a candidate, individuals are looking to machines for guidance. Data suggests a large majority of user queries concern non-work topics. Even more intriguing than our use of AI for judgment is what occurs when we let it express for us. Writing is now among the most common uses for tools like ChatGPT, just behind practical requests. The celebrated American author Joan Didion once remarked, “I write purely to discover what I am thinking.” What occurs when we stop composing? 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 participants who had could use AI, Google, or nothing. Those who could use AI showed the lowest cognitive engagement and had difficulty accurately recalling their own work. Perhaps most concerning was that over time, individuals in the AI group became increasingly reliant, pasting entire blocks of text.

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

Certainly, AI's attraction stems from its convenience. It saves time, minimizes work and – importantly – offers a novel way to abdicate responsibility. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm argued that the rise of fascism could be understood by a preference to give up personal freedom in exchange for the comforting security of subordination. AI offers a modern method of relinquishing the burden of having to think and choose.

The Opacity Dilemma: Trust Without Understanding

AI's greatest allure is its capacity to accomplish things outside human capability – sifting through oceans of data at lightning pace. Stuck in the car in Marseille, this was, ultimately, why I opted to believe the machine over my friend (a decision she took as an insult). With access to all the data, certainly the algorithm had superior insight – or so I thought.

The fundamental problem is that AI operates as a opaque system. It produces answers, but not always fostering human comprehension. We do not truly know how AI reaches its conclusions – including its creators admit this. Nor can we check its logic against transparent standards. So when we heed AI's advice, we are not being led by logic. We are returning to the realm of belief. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, side with the machine – that may become our future guiding principle.

Using Without Losing: The Critical Balance

AI can be a powerful tool for mankind in scientific pursuit. It can aid in inventing drugs, liberate us from "bullshit jobs", or manage taxes – duties that demand little thought and offer little satisfaction. All to the good. But Kant and his peers did not champion reason over faith just so humans could optimize chores or have more leisure. Independent thought was not just about productivity – it was a discipline of liberty and human self-determination.

Human thought is inherently messy and fallible, but it forces us to argue, to doubt, to test ideas – and to acknowledge the limits of our own understanding. It builds confidence, 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 resist control. It was about creating a ethical society grounded in the common foundation of rational discourse, rather than unquestioning acceptance.

With all the advantages AI brings, the paramount challenge remains: how can we leverage 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 would do well not to outsource to the machine.