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This recent season, I found myself navigating in congested traffic on the sweltering streets of a southern French city. At an intersection, my companion in the passenger seat suggested 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 algorithm's advice. Moments later, we were stranded at a roadwork site.

A minor incident, perhaps. But one that captures a central dilemma of our era, where technology permeates almost every aspect of our lives: whom do we trust more – fellow humans and our own intuition, or the algorithm?

The Enlightenment's Promise and Our Modern Relapse

The influential German philosopher Immanuel Kant famously described the Enlightenment as "humanity's emergence from its self-imposed immaturity." This immaturity, he wrote, "represents the inability to use one's personal reason without guidance from an external source." For centuries, that directing force for society was frequently the priest, the king, or the landowner – figures claiming to speak for divine will. To comprehend natural events like changing seasons, people looked for explanations in religion. In shaping the fabric of society, from commerce to love, religious doctrine served as the main compass.

“Sapere aude!” or “Have courage to use your own understanding!”

Kant argued that humans always possessed the capacity for reason. They just didn't have the boldness to use it. With upheavals in the 18th century, a new dawn emerged: reason would supplant superstition, and the intellect, freed from authority, would become the driver of advancement and a better world.

Today, two and a half centuries later, one might wonder if we are slipping back into a form of intellectual immaturity. An app suggesting a driving route is just one example. Artificial intelligence threatens to become our new "other" – a silent overseer that influences our decisions and behaviors. We risk relinquishing the hard-won courage to reason for ourselves – and this time, not to deities or rulers, but to computer programs.

The Rapid Rise and Hidden Risks of Algorithmic Reliance

ChatGPT was launched only in 2022, and yet a recent study indicated that an overwhelming majority of people had engaged with artificial intelligence in the preceding half-year. Whether contemplating a breakup or choosing a candidate, individuals are increasingly turning to machines for counsel. Research suggests a large majority of user prompts relate to personal life matters. Even more striking than our reliance on AI for advice is what occurs when we allow it express for us. Composition is now among the top uses for generative AI, just behind everyday tasks. The celebrated American author Joan Didion famously said, “I write purely to find out what I am thinking.” What transpires when we stop composing? Do we cease discovering?

Alarmingly, emerging research hints the outcome may be affirmative. A study conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used electroencephalography to observe the cognitive activity of participants who had access to 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, participants in the AI group grew progressively lazier, copying entire blocks of text.

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

Certainly, AI's attraction lies in its convenience. It saves time, minimizes work and – importantly – offers a new method to abdicate responsibility. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm proposed that the appeal of authoritarianism could be understood by a human tendency to surrender personal freedom in exchange for the reassuring certainty of subordination. AI offers a digital avenue for relinquishing the burden of having to decide for oneself.

The Opacity Dilemma: Faith Over Reason

AI's greatest allure is its capacity to perform tasks beyond our minds – sifting through vast datasets at unprecedented speed. Sitting in the car in Marseille, this was, after all, why I chose to believe the machine over my companion (a decision she interpreted as an insult). With access to real-time information, surely the algorithm had superior insight – or so I thought.

The fundamental problem is that AI is a opaque system. It generates answers, but not always fostering human understanding. We do not truly know how AI reaches its decisions – including its programmers admit this. Nor can we verify its reasoning 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, trust the machine – that could be our 21st-century credo.

Harnessing Without Eroding: The Critical Balance

AI can be a formidable ally for humanity in scientific pursuit. It can aid in medical research, liberate us from tedious tasks, or manage taxes – work that demand little thought and are unfulfilling. This is beneficial. But Kant and his peers did not champion enlightenment just so humans could assemble better furniture or have more leisure. Independent thought was not merely about efficiency – it was a discipline of freedom and human emancipation.

Human thought is inherently messy and fallible, but it compels us to argue, to doubt, to challenge concepts – and to acknowledge the boundaries of our own understanding. It fosters self-reliance, both personally and as a society. For Kant, the use of reason was never only about information; it was about enabling people to become agents of their own destinies, and to oppose domination. It was about building a moral community based on the common foundation of reason and debate, rather than unquestioning acceptance.

With all the undeniable benefits AI offers, the key question remains: how can we harness its potential of advanced capability without undermining human reasoning, the cornerstone of the Enlightenment and of free societies itself? That is likely one of the defining questions of our century. It is a question we must strive not to outsource to the machine.