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This past summer, I was caught 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 fish soup. Yet, the digital guide on my phone instructed us to continue straight. Weary and overheated, I heeded the algorithm's directive. Moments later, we were stranded at a construction site.

A minor incident, perhaps. But one that encapsulates a defining question of our era, where digital tools permeates nearly every facet of existence: whom do we trust more – fellow humans and our own intuition, 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 nonage." This state, he wrote, "represents the incapacity to use one's own understanding without direction from another." For centuries, that directing force for human thought was often the clergyman, the monarch, or the landowner – figures claiming to speak for God's voice. To explain natural events like changing seasons, people looked for explanations in religion. In shaping the fabric of society, from economics to matters of the heart, religious doctrine acted as the main compass.

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

Kant maintained that humans had the capacity for reason. They simply lacked the confidence to use it. With revolutions in America and France, a fresh era emerged: reason would supplant superstition, and the human mind, freed from authority, would become the driver of progress and a better world.

Today, 250 years later, one might question if we are quietly regressing into a form of dependency. An app dictating a driving route is merely the start. Artificial intelligence risks becoming our contemporary authority – a silent overseer that steers our choices and behaviors. We risk relinquishing the historically earned autonomy to think independently – and now, not to deities or rulers, but to lines of code.

The Swift Adoption and Subtle Dangers of Algorithmic Reliance

ChatGPT debuted a mere three years ago, and yet a global survey indicated that an overwhelming majority of people had used AI in the preceding half-year. Whether contemplating a breakup or choosing a candidate, individuals are increasingly turning to machines for guidance. Research suggests a large majority of user prompts concern non-work topics. Even more striking than our use of AI for advice is what happens when we allow it express for us. Writing is now one of the top uses for tools like ChatGPT, just behind practical requests. The celebrated American author Joan Didion once remarked, “I write purely to find out what I am thinking.” What transpires when we stop composing? Do we cease discovering?

Alarmingly, some evidence suggests the outcome may be affirmative. A study conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used brain monitoring to observe the cognitive activity of participants who had access to AI, Google, or no aids. Those who could use AI showed the least brain activity and had trouble quoting their own work. Perhaps most troubling was that over time, participants in the AI group grew increasingly reliant, pasting entire blocks of text.

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

Certainly, AI's appeal lies in its efficiency. It is fast, reduces effort and – importantly – offers a novel way to offload accountability. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm argued that the appeal of authoritarianism could be partly explained by a human tendency to give up personal freedom in for the sake of the comforting security of obedience. AI offers a modern avenue for relinquishing the burden of having to decide for oneself.

The Black Box Problem: Trust Without Understanding

AI's primary draw is its ability to perform tasks beyond our minds – sifting through oceans of data at unprecedented speed. Sitting in the car in Marseille, this was, ultimately, why I opted to trust the app over my friend (a choice she interpreted 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 deepening human comprehension. We do not truly know how AI reaches its decisions – including its creators admit this. Nor can we check its reasoning against transparent standards. So when we heed AI's recommendation, we are not being guided by reason. We are back in the realm of faith. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, side with the machine – that could be our future credo.

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 are unfulfilling. All to the good. But Kant and his contemporaries did not champion reason over faith just so humans could assemble better furniture or have more leisure. Critical thinking was not merely about productivity – it was a discipline of liberty and human emancipation.

Human thought is inherently messy and error-prone, but it forces us to debate, to doubt, to challenge concepts – and to recognize the boundaries of our own knowledge. It fosters confidence, both personally and as a society. For Kant, the use of reason was never only about information; it was about enabling people to become authors of their own destinies, and to resist domination. It was about building a ethical society based on the common foundation of reason and debate, rather than unquestioning acceptance.

With all the advantages AI offers, the key question is this: how can we harness its promise of superhuman intelligence without eroding human reasoning, the cornerstone of the Enlightenment and of free societies itself? That is likely one of the central dilemmas of our time. It is a question we would do well not to delegate to the algorithm.