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This past summer, I was caught in gridlocked traffic on the sweltering streets of a southern French city. At an intersection, 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 continue straight. Weary and in a stifling car, I followed the algorithm's advice. Minutes later, we were stuck at a construction site.

A seemingly trivial event, perhaps. But one that captures a defining question of our time, where technology touches almost every aspect of our lives: who gets our trust to a greater degree – other people and our own intuition, or the machine?

The Enlightenment's Promise and Our Modern Relapse

The influential German philosopher Immanuel Kant once defined the Enlightenment as "man's release from its self-imposed immaturity." This state, he argued, "is the inability to use one's own understanding without guidance from another." For ages, that directing force for human thought was frequently the priest, the monarch, or the feudal lord – figures claiming to channel God's voice. To comprehend phenomena like volcanic eruptions, people looked for explanations in religion. In organizing the fabric of society, from commerce to love, religious doctrine acted 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 confidence to employ it. With upheavals in America and France, a new dawn emerged: logic would replace blind faith, and the human mind, freed from dogma, would become the driver of advancement and a more ethical world.

Today, two and a half centuries later, one might question if we are quietly regressing into a form of intellectual immaturity. An app dictating a driving route is merely the start. Artificial intelligence threatens to become our new "other" – a unseen overseer that influences our decisions and behaviors. We are in danger of ceding the historically earned autonomy to reason for ourselves – and this time, not to gods or kings, but to computer programs.

The Swift Adoption and Hidden Risks of Algorithmic Reliance

ChatGPT debuted a mere three years ago, and yet a recent study found that an vast number of people had used AI in the previous six months. Whether deciding on ending a relationship or choosing a candidate, individuals are looking to machines for guidance. Data suggests a large majority of user prompts relate to personal life matters. Even more intriguing than our use of AI for judgment is what happens when we let it speak for us. Composition is now among the most common uses for generative AI, second only to practical requests. The late American author Joan Didion famously said, “I write entirely to find out what I am thinking.” What transpires when we stop composing? Do we cease discovering?

Alarmingly, emerging research suggests the answer may be affirmative. A study conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used brain monitoring to track the mental engagement of participants who had could use AI, traditional search engines, or nothing. Those who could rely on AI displayed the least cognitive engagement and had trouble accurately recalling their own work. Perhaps most concerning was that after a few months, participants in the AI group grew increasingly reliant, pasting entire blocks of text.

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

Certainly, AI's appeal lies in its efficiency. It saves time, reduces effort and – critically – offers a novel way to abdicate accountability. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm proposed that the rise of fascism could be partly explained by a human tendency to surrender personal freedom in for the sake of the comforting security of subordination. AI offers a digital avenue for relinquishing the burden of having to think and choose.

The Opacity Dilemma: Faith Over Reason

AI's greatest allure is its ability to accomplish things outside our minds – 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 companion (a decision she took as an affront). With knowledge of real-time information, certainly the app must know best – or so I believed.

The core issue is that AI operates as a black box. It produces answers, but not always fostering human comprehension. We cannot fully grasp the process behind its conclusions – even 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, trust the machine – that may become our 21st-century credo.

Using Without Losing: The Essential Challenge

AI can be a powerful tool for humanity in scientific pursuit. It can aid in inventing drugs, free us from "bullshit jobs", or handle administrative chores – duties that demand little thought and are unfulfilling. This is beneficial. But Kant and his contemporaries did not champion reason over faith just so humans could optimize chores or have more leisure. Critical thinking was not just about productivity – it was a practice of liberty and human emancipation.

Human thought is often chaotic and fallible, but it compels us to argue, to doubt, to test ideas – and to recognize the limits of our own understanding. It builds confidence, both personally and as a society. For Kant, the exercise of reason was never only about acquiring knowledge; it was about enabling people to become agents of their own lives, and to oppose control. It was about creating a moral community grounded in the common foundation of reason and debate, rather than blind belief.

With all the advantages AI offers, the paramount challenge remains: how can we harness its promise of superhuman intelligence without undermining human reasoning, the cornerstone of the Enlightenment and of liberal democracy itself? That may be one of the defining questions of our century. It is a question we would do well not to outsource to the algorithm.