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This recent season, I found myself navigating in congested traffic on the sweltering streets of Marseille. At an intersection, my companion in the front seat suggested a right turn toward a famous spot for fish soup. However, the digital guide on my phone commanded us to go forward. Fatigued and overheated, I heeded the app's advice. Moments later, we were stranded at a roadwork site.

A minor event, perhaps. But one that encapsulates a central dilemma of our era, where digital tools touches almost every aspect of existence: who gets our trust more – fellow humans and our personal instincts, or the algorithm?

A Call for Intellectual Maturity and A Contemporary Backslide

The renowned German philosopher Immanuel Kant once defined the Enlightenment as "humanity's emergence from its self-imposed immaturity." This state, he argued, "is the incapacity to use one's personal reason without guidance from an external source." For centuries, that directing force for society was frequently the priest, the monarch, or the feudal lord – figures claiming to channel God's voice. To explain phenomena like changing seasons, people looked for explanations in theology. In organizing the social world, from economics to love, faith acted as the primary guide.

“Sapere aude!” or “Dare to use your reason!”

Kant maintained that humans always possessed the capacity for reason. They just didn't have the confidence to use it. With revolutions in America and France, a fresh era arrived: reason would replace blind faith, and the human mind, freed from dogma, would become the driver of progress and a more ethical world.

Now, two and a half centuries later, one might question if we are quietly regressing into a state of intellectual immaturity. An app suggesting a direction is just one example. Artificial intelligence risks becoming our new "other" – a unseen guide that steers our decisions and behaviors. We risk ceding the hard-won autonomy to reason for ourselves – and now, not to deities or rulers, but to computer programs.

The Rapid Rise and Subtle Dangers of Algorithmic Reliance

ChatGPT was launched only in 2022, and already a global survey found that an overwhelming majority of people had used AI 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 queries relate to non-work topics. Even more striking than our use of AI for advice is what happens 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 late American author Joan Didion once remarked, “I write entirely to find out what I am thinking.” What transpires when we cease writing? Do we cease discovering?

Alarmingly, emerging research hints the answer may be affirmative. A study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used electroencephalography to track the mental engagement of essay writers who had could use AI, Google, or nothing. Those who could rely on AI showed the lowest brain activity and had trouble accurately recalling their own work. Maybe most concerning was that after a few months, participants in the AI group grew increasingly reliant, pasting large sections of text.

“Inertia and fear,” Kant wrote, “are the reasons why so many of men … remain in lifelong immaturity.”

Of course, AI's attraction stems from its efficiency. It is fast, minimizes work and – critically – offers a new method to offload responsibility. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm argued that the rise of fascism could be partly explained by a preference to surrender autonomy in exchange for the comforting security of obedience. AI presents a modern method of surrendering the weight of having to think and choose.

The Black Box Problem: Trust Without Understanding

AI's primary draw is its ability to accomplish things beyond human capability – sifting through vast datasets at unprecedented speed. Sitting in the car in Marseille, this was, after all, why I opted to believe the app over my companion (a choice she interpreted as an insult). With knowledge of all the data, certainly the app must know best – or so I thought.

The fundamental problem is that AI operates as a black box. It produces answers, but without necessarily fostering human understanding. We do not truly know the process behind its conclusions – including its programmers acknowledge the opacity. Nor can we verify its reasoning against transparent standards. So when we heed AI's advice, we are not being guided by reason. We are returning to the domain 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 rational inquiry. It can help inventing drugs, free us from tedious tasks, or manage administrative chores – duties that are repetitive 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 extra free time. Independent thought was not just about efficiency – it was a discipline of freedom and human self-determination.

Human thought is often chaotic and fallible, but it forces us to argue, to question, to test ideas – and to acknowledge the boundaries of our own knowledge. It builds confidence, both personally and as a society. For Kant, the exercise of reason was never only about information; it was about empowering people to become authors of their own destinies, and to oppose control. It was about creating a moral community grounded in the shared principle of rational discourse, rather than blind belief.

With all the undeniable benefits AI brings, the key question remains: how can we harness its promise of advanced capability without undermining human reasoning, the cornerstone of the Enlightenment and of free societies themselves? That may be one of the central dilemmas of our time. It is a question we would do well not to outsource to the algorithm.