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This recent season, I found myself navigating in gridlocked traffic on the sweltering streets of Marseille. At a crossing, my friend in the front seat suggested a right turn toward a renowned spot for fish soup. Yet, the digital guide on my phone commanded us to go forward. Fatigued and overheated, I followed the app's advice. Moments later, we were stuck at a roadwork site.

A seemingly trivial event, perhaps. But one that encapsulates a central dilemma of our time, where digital tools touches nearly every facet of our lives: whom do we trust more – fellow humans and our own intuition, or the algorithm?

A Call for Intellectual Maturity and Our Modern Relapse

The influential German philosopher Immanuel Kant famously described the Enlightenment as "humanity's emergence from its self-inflicted nonage." This state, he wrote, "is the inability to use one's personal reason without direction from another." For centuries, that guiding "other" for society was often the clergyman, the monarch, or the landowner – figures purporting to channel divine will. To comprehend phenomena like changing seasons, people sought answers in theology. In organizing the fabric of society, from economics to matters of the heart, faith served as the primary guide.

“Sapere aude!” or “Have courage to use your reason!”

Kant argued that humans always possessed the ability to think rationally. They just didn't have the boldness to use it. With revolutions in the 18th century, a fresh era emerged: logic would supplant blind faith, and the human mind, 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 quietly regressing into a form of dependency. An app dictating a direction is just one example. AI threatens to become our new "other" – a silent guide that influences our decisions and actions. We are in danger of relinquishing the hard-won courage to reason for ourselves – and this time, not to gods or kings, but to lines of code.

The Swift Adoption and Subtle Dangers of AI Dependence

ChatGPT was launched a mere three years ago, and already a recent study found that an vast number of respondents had engaged with artificial intelligence in the preceding half-year. Whether contemplating a breakup or selecting a vote, individuals are increasingly turning to machines for guidance. Research suggests a significant portion of user prompts relate to non-work topics. Even more striking than our reliance on AI for judgment is what happens when we allow it express for us. Writing is now one of the most common uses for tools like ChatGPT, just behind everyday tasks. The late American author Joan Didion once remarked, “I write purely to discover what I am thinking.” What occurs when we stop composing? Do we lose that path?

Worryingly, some evidence hints the outcome may be affirmative. A study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used brain monitoring to observe the cognitive activity of essay writers who had access to AI, traditional search engines, or no aids. Those who could use AI showed the least cognitive engagement and had difficulty quoting their own work. Maybe most concerning was that after a few months, participants in the AI group grew progressively lazier, pasting large sections of text.

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

Certainly, AI's appeal stems from its convenience. It is fast, minimizes work and – importantly – offers a novel way to offload accountability. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm argued that the rise of fascism could be partly explained by a human tendency to give up autonomy in exchange for the comforting security of subordination. AI offers a modern avenue for surrendering the burden of having to think and choose.

The Opacity Dilemma: Faith Over Reason

AI's primary draw is its capacity to accomplish things beyond human capability – sifting through vast datasets at lightning pace. Sitting in the car in Marseille, this was, after all, why I chose to believe the app over my friend (a choice she took as an affront). With access to all the data, surely the algorithm must know best – or so I thought.

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 programmers acknowledge the opacity. Nor can we verify its logic against transparent standards. So when we heed AI's advice, we are not being led by logic. We are back in the realm of faith. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, side with the machine – that could be our 21st-century credo.

Harnessing Without Eroding: The Essential Challenge

AI can be a powerful tool for mankind in rational inquiry. It can help inventing drugs, free 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 advocate for reason over faith just so humans could assemble better furniture or have more leisure. Critical thinking was not just about efficiency – it was a discipline of liberty and human emancipation.

Human thought is often chaotic and fallible, but it forces us to argue, to doubt, to test ideas – and to acknowledge the boundaries of our own understanding. It builds 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 authors of their own lives, and to oppose control. It was about building a ethical society based on the common foundation of rational discourse, rather than blind belief.

With all the undeniable benefits AI offers, the paramount challenge remains: how can we harness its promise of advanced capability without undermining human rationality, the bedrock of the Enlightenment and of free societies themselves? That may be one of the defining questions of our time. It is a question we would do well not to delegate to the machine.