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This past summer, I found myself navigating in gridlocked traffic on the scorching streets of a southern French city. At a crossing, my companion in the passenger seat advised a right turn toward a renowned spot for bouillabaisse. Yet, the digital guide on my phone commanded us to go forward. Fatigued and overheated, I followed the algorithm's advice. Minutes later, we were stranded at a roadwork site.

A minor incident, maybe. But one that encapsulates a central dilemma of our era, where technology permeates almost every aspect of our lives: whom do we trust to a greater degree – other people and our personal instincts, or the machine?

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 immaturity." This immaturity, he wrote, "is the inability to use one's personal reason without guidance 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 explain natural events like volcanic eruptions, people looked for explanations in theology. In organizing the social world, from commerce to love, faith served as the main compass.

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

Kant argued that humans always possessed the capacity for reason. They just didn't have the confidence to use it. With revolutions in the 18th century, a fresh era emerged: reason would supplant superstition, and the human mind, freed from authority, would become the driver of advancement and a better world.

Now, 250 years later, one might wonder if we are quietly regressing into a form of intellectual immaturity. An app suggesting a direction is merely the start. AI risks becoming our new "other" – a silent overseer that influences our choices and behaviors. We risk ceding the historically earned courage to think independently – and this time, not to gods or kings, but to computer programs.

The Rapid Rise and Hidden Risks of AI Dependence

ChatGPT debuted a mere three years ago, and already a global survey indicated that an vast number of respondents had engaged with artificial intelligence in the preceding half-year. Whether deciding on a breakup or choosing a candidate, individuals are looking to algorithms for counsel. Data suggests a significant portion of user queries relate to non-work topics. Even more intriguing than our use of AI for judgment is what occurs when we allow it speak for us. Writing is now one of the top uses for tools like ChatGPT, second only to everyday tasks. The celebrated American author Joan Didion once remarked, “I write entirely to discover what I am thinking.” What occurs when we stop composing? Do we cease discovering?

Alarmingly, emerging research suggests the outcome may be yes. A study conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used brain monitoring to observe the mental engagement of essay writers who had access to AI, traditional search engines, or nothing. Those who could use AI showed the least cognitive engagement and had difficulty accurately recalling their own work. Perhaps most troubling was that over time, individuals in the AI group became progressively lazier, pasting large sections 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 efficiency. It is fast, reduces effort and – critically – offers a novel way 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 give up personal freedom in exchange for the reassuring certainty of obedience. AI offers a digital method of relinquishing the burden of having to think and choose.

The Black Box Problem: Trust Without Understanding

AI's primary draw is its capacity to accomplish things beyond human capability – analyzing oceans of data at unprecedented speed. Sitting in the car in Marseille, this was, ultimately, why I opted to believe the machine over my friend (a decision she interpreted as an insult). With knowledge of real-time information, certainly the algorithm must know best – or so I thought.

The core issue is that AI is a black box. It produces answers, but not always fostering human understanding. We cannot fully grasp how AI reaches its conclusions – including its creators admit this. Nor can we verify its logic against transparent standards. So when we follow AI's recommendation, we are not being guided by reason. We are returning to the domain of faith. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, side with the machine – that could be our future guiding principle.

Harnessing Without Eroding: The Critical Balance

AI can be a powerful tool for mankind in scientific pursuit. It can help inventing drugs, liberate us from "bullshit jobs", or handle taxes – duties that are repetitive and offer little satisfaction. This is beneficial. But Kant and his contemporaries did not champion enlightenment just so humans could optimize chores or have extra free time. Independent thought was not merely about efficiency – it was a discipline of liberty and human self-determination.

Human thought is often chaotic and fallible, but it forces us to argue, to question, to challenge concepts – and to recognize the limits of our own knowledge. It fosters self-reliance, both individually and collectively. For Kant, the use of reason was never solely about information; it was about empowering people to become authors of their own destinies, and to resist domination. It was about creating a ethical society grounded in the shared principle of rational discourse, rather than blind belief.

With all the advantages AI brings, the key question remains: how can we leverage its promise of advanced capability without eroding human reasoning, the cornerstone of the Enlightenment and of liberal democracy themselves? That may be one of the central dilemmas of our time. It is a question we must strive not to outsource to the machine.