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This past summer, I found myself navigating in congested traffic on the sweltering streets of Marseille. At a crossing, my companion in the passenger seat advised a right turn toward a famous spot for fish soup. Yet, the digital guide on my phone instructed us to continue straight. Weary and in a stifling car, I followed the app's advice. Moments later, we were stuck at a roadwork site.

A minor event, perhaps. But one that encapsulates a defining dilemma of our era, where technology touches almost every aspect of our lives: whom do we trust more – fellow humans and our own intuition, or the machine?

The Enlightenment's Promise and A Contemporary Backslide

The renowned German philosopher Immanuel Kant once defined the Enlightenment as "humanity's emergence from its self-imposed nonage." This immaturity, he wrote, "represents the incapacity to use one's own understanding without direction from an external source." For ages, that guiding "other" for human thought was often the clergyman, the monarch, or the landowner – entities claiming to speak for divine will. To comprehend natural events like changing seasons, people sought answers in theology. In organizing the social world, from commerce to love, faith served as the main compass.

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

Kant maintained that humans had the capacity for reason. They simply lacked the boldness to use it. With upheavals in America and France, a new dawn emerged: reason would replace blind faith, and the human mind, liberated from dogma, would become the driver of progress and a better world.

Now, two and a half centuries later, one might wonder if we are quietly regressing into a state of dependency. An app suggesting a direction is merely the start. AI threatens to become our contemporary authority – a silent guide that influences our choices and actions. We risk relinquishing the hard-won autonomy to think independently – and this time, not to gods or kings, but to computer programs.

The Rapid Rise and Subtle Dangers of AI Dependence

ChatGPT was launched a mere three years ago, and yet a global survey indicated that an overwhelming majority of respondents had engaged with artificial intelligence in the preceding half-year. Whether deciding on ending a relationship or choosing a candidate, individuals are looking to algorithms for guidance. Research suggests a significant portion of user prompts relate to non-work topics. Even more intriguing than our use of AI for judgment is what occurs when we allow it express for us. Writing is now one of the top uses for tools like ChatGPT, just behind everyday tasks. The late American author Joan Didion famously said, “I write purely to discover what I am thinking.” What occurs when we stop composing? Do we cease discovering?

Worryingly, emerging research suggests the answer may be affirmative. 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, Google, or nothing. Those who could rely on AI showed the least brain activity and had trouble quoting their own work. Maybe most troubling was that after a few months, individuals in the AI group became increasingly reliant, pasting entire blocks of text.

“Laziness and cowardice,” Kant wrote, “are the reasons why so great a proportion of men … stay in lifelong immaturity.”

Certainly, AI's appeal lies in its convenience. It saves time, reduces effort and – critically – 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 partly explained by a preference to surrender autonomy in for the sake of the comforting security of obedience. AI offers a modern avenue for surrendering the burden of having to think and choose.

The Opacity Dilemma: Trust Without Understanding

AI's primary draw is its capacity to perform tasks outside our minds – analyzing oceans of data at unprecedented speed. Stuck in the car in Marseille, this was, ultimately, why I chose to believe the app over my friend (a choice she took as an affront). With access to all the data, certainly the app must know best – or so I believed.

The core issue is that AI is a opaque system. It produces knowledge, but not always deepening human comprehension. We do not truly know the process behind its conclusions – even its programmers admit this. Nor can we check its reasoning against clear, objective criteria. 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 21st-century credo.

Using Without Losing: The Critical Balance

AI can be a powerful tool for mankind in rational inquiry. It can help medical research, liberate us from tedious tasks, or manage taxes – duties that are repetitive and are unfulfilling. This is beneficial. But Kant and his peers did not advocate for reason over faith just so humans could assemble better furniture or have extra free time. Critical thinking was not just about efficiency – it was a discipline of liberty and human self-determination.

Human thought is inherently messy and fallible, but it forces us to argue, to question, to challenge concepts – and to acknowledge the limits of our own understanding. It builds confidence, both personally and as a society. For Kant, the use of reason was never only about information; it was about empowering people to become agents of their own destinies, and to oppose control. It was about building a moral community grounded in the common foundation of reason and debate, rather than blind belief.

With all the undeniable benefits AI offers, the key question remains: how can we harness its potential of superhuman intelligence without eroding human rationality, the bedrock of the Enlightenment and of liberal democracy itself? That may be one of the central dilemmas of our century. It is a question we must strive not to delegate to the algorithm.