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This past summer, I found myself navigating in gridlocked traffic on the sweltering streets of Marseille. At a crossing, my friend in the front seat advised a right turn toward a famous spot for bouillabaisse. Yet, the digital guide on my phone instructed us to go forward. Weary and overheated, I heeded the algorithm's advice. Moments later, we were stranded at a construction site.

A seemingly trivial incident, maybe. But one that captures a defining question of our era, where digital tools permeates almost every aspect of existence: whom do we trust more – other people and our own intuition, or the machine?

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 personal reason without guidance from an external source." For ages, that directing force for society was frequently the clergyman, the king, or the landowner – figures purporting to speak for God's voice. To explain phenomena like volcanic eruptions, people looked for explanations in theology. 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 own understanding!”

Kant argued that humans always possessed the ability to think rationally. They simply lacked the confidence to use it. With revolutions in the 18th century, a new dawn arrived: reason would supplant blind faith, and the intellect, liberated from dogma, would become the driver of progress and a better world.

Today, 250 years later, one might question if we are slipping back into a state of intellectual immaturity. An app dictating a driving route is merely the start. AI threatens to become our new "other" – a unseen overseer that steers our choices and actions. We risk ceding the historically earned autonomy to reason for ourselves – and this time, not to deities or rulers, but to lines of code.

The Rapid Rise and Hidden Risks of Algorithmic Reliance

ChatGPT debuted a mere three years ago, and yet a recent study indicated that an overwhelming majority of people had used AI in the previous six months. Whether contemplating ending a relationship or choosing a candidate, individuals are looking to algorithms for counsel. Research suggests a significant portion of user queries relate to personal life matters. Even more striking than our reliance on AI for advice is what occurs when we let it speak for us. Composition is now one of the top uses for tools like ChatGPT, just behind practical requests. 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?

Alarmingly, emerging research hints the outcome may be yes. A study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used brain monitoring to observe the cognitive activity of essay writers who had could use AI, Google, or no aids. Those who could rely on AI showed the least cognitive engagement and had trouble quoting their own work. Maybe most concerning was that after a few months, individuals in the AI group became increasingly reliant, copying entire blocks of text.

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

Certainly, AI's attraction 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 understood by a preference to give up 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 Black Box Problem: Trust Without Understanding

AI's greatest allure is its ability to accomplish things outside our minds – sifting through oceans of data at lightning pace. Stuck 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, surely the algorithm had superior insight – or so I believed.

The fundamental problem is that AI is a opaque system. It produces knowledge, but not always fostering human understanding. We cannot fully grasp how AI reaches its decisions – including its creators admit this. Nor can we verify 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 belief. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, trust the machine – that may become our 21st-century guiding principle.

Using Without Losing: The Critical Balance

AI can be a powerful tool for mankind in rational inquiry. It can help inventing drugs, free us from "bullshit jobs", or manage administrative chores – work that demand little thought and offer little satisfaction. This is beneficial. But Kant and his peers did not champion enlightenment just so humans could optimize chores or have more leisure. Independent thought was not just about productivity – it was a discipline of freedom and human self-determination.

Human thought is inherently messy and fallible, but it compels us to argue, to doubt, to test ideas – and to acknowledge the boundaries of our own knowledge. It fosters confidence, both individually and as a society. For Kant, the use of reason was never only about acquiring knowledge; it was about enabling people to become authors of their own destinies, and to resist domination. It was about creating a ethical society based on the shared principle of reason and debate, rather than unquestioning acceptance.

With all the advantages AI offers, the paramount challenge is this: how can we leverage its potential of superhuman intelligence without eroding human reasoning, the cornerstone of the Enlightenment and of liberal democracy itself? That is likely one of the defining questions of our century. It is a question we must strive not to delegate to the machine.