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This recent season, I found myself navigating in gridlocked traffic on the sweltering streets of a southern French city. At a crossing, my companion in the front seat suggested a right turn toward a renowned spot for bouillabaisse. However, the navigation app on my phone instructed us to continue straight. Fatigued and in a stifling car, I followed the app's advice. Minutes later, we were stranded at a roadwork site.

A minor incident, perhaps. But one that encapsulates a central question of our era, where digital tools permeates nearly every facet 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 A Contemporary Backslide

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 own understanding without direction from another." For ages, that directing force for society was often the priest, the monarch, or the feudal lord – entities purporting to speak for divine will. To comprehend natural events like changing seasons, people looked for explanations in religion. In organizing the fabric of society, from commerce to love, religious doctrine acted as the main compass.

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

Kant maintained that humans had the capacity for reason. They just didn't have the boldness to employ it. With upheavals in the 18th century, a fresh era arrived: reason would supplant superstition, and the human mind, liberated from dogma, would become the engine of advancement and a better world.

Now, 250 years later, one might question if we are slipping back into a state of intellectual immaturity. An app suggesting a direction is just one example. Artificial intelligence risks becoming our new "other" – a silent overseer that steers our decisions and behaviors. We risk relinquishing the hard-won courage to reason for ourselves – and this time, not to gods or kings, but to lines of code.

The Swift Adoption and Subtle Dangers of Algorithmic Reliance

ChatGPT debuted only in 2022, and already a global survey indicated that an vast number of respondents had engaged with artificial intelligence in the previous six months. Whether contemplating ending a relationship or choosing a candidate, individuals are increasingly turning to machines for counsel. Data suggests a significant portion of user queries concern non-work topics. Even more striking than our reliance on AI for judgment is what occurs when we allow it speak for us. Composition is now among the top uses for generative AI, second only to practical requests. The late American author Joan Didion once remarked, “I write purely to find out what I am thinking.” What transpires when we cease writing? Do we cease discovering?

Worryingly, emerging research suggests 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 access to AI, traditional search engines, or nothing. Those who could rely on AI showed the lowest cognitive engagement and had trouble accurately recalling their own work. Maybe most troubling was that after a few months, individuals in the AI group grew increasingly reliant, copying large sections of text.

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

Of course, AI's attraction lies in its efficiency. It saves time, reduces effort and – importantly – offers a new method to offload responsibility. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm proposed that the rise of fascism could be understood by a human tendency to give up personal freedom in for the sake of the reassuring certainty of subordination. AI presents a modern avenue for surrendering the burden of having to think and choose.

The Black Box Problem: Faith Over Reason

AI's primary draw is its capacity to perform tasks beyond our minds – sifting through vast datasets at lightning pace. Stuck in the car in Marseille, this was, after all, why I opted to believe the machine over my friend (a decision she interpreted as an insult). With access to all the data, certainly the algorithm must know best – or so I believed.

The fundamental problem is that AI is a opaque system. It produces answers, but not always fostering human comprehension. We do not truly know the process behind its decisions – even 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 led by logic. We are returning to the realm of belief. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, side with the machine – that could be our 21st-century guiding principle.

Harnessing Without Eroding: The Critical Balance

AI can be a powerful tool for mankind in rational inquiry. It can aid in medical research, liberate us from tedious tasks, or handle administrative chores – work that demand little thought and are unfulfilling. All to the good. But Kant and his contemporaries did not champion enlightenment just so humans could assemble better furniture or have more leisure. Critical thinking was not just about efficiency – it was a discipline of freedom and human self-determination.

Human thought is inherently messy and fallible, but it forces us to argue, to doubt, to test ideas – and to recognize the boundaries of our own understanding. It fosters 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 authors of their own destinies, and to resist control. It was about creating a ethical society grounded in the shared principle of reason and debate, rather than unquestioning acceptance.

With all the undeniable benefits AI brings, the paramount challenge is this: how can we harness its potential of superhuman intelligence without undermining human rationality, the bedrock of the Enlightenment and of free societies themselves? That may be one of the central dilemmas of our century. It is a question we would do well not to delegate to the algorithm.