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This recent season, I was caught in congested traffic on the sweltering streets of a southern French city. At a crossing, my friend in the front seat suggested a right turn toward a renowned spot for fish soup. Yet, the navigation app on my phone commanded us to go forward. Weary and overheated, I followed the app's advice. Minutes later, we were stranded at a construction site.

A seemingly trivial event, perhaps. But one that captures a central dilemma of our time, where technology permeates nearly every facet of our lives: whom do we trust more – fellow humans and our personal instincts, or the machine?

The Enlightenment's Promise and Our Modern Relapse

The renowned German philosopher Immanuel Kant famously described the Enlightenment as "man's release from its self-inflicted nonage." This immaturity, he argued, "is the inability to use one's own understanding without guidance from an external source." For ages, that directing force for human thought was often the priest, the king, or the landowner – figures purporting to channel God's voice. To comprehend phenomena like volcanic eruptions, people looked for explanations in religion. In organizing the social world, from economics to matters of the heart, religious doctrine acted as the main compass.

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

Kant argued that humans had the ability to think rationally. They simply lacked the boldness to use it. With upheavals in the 18th century, a fresh era emerged: reason would supplant blind faith, and the intellect, liberated from authority, would become the driver of advancement and a better world.

Now, two and a half centuries later, one might wonder if we are quietly regressing into a state of dependency. An app dictating a direction is merely the start. AI risks becoming our new "other" – a unseen overseer that influences our choices and actions. We risk ceding the hard-won courage to think independently – and now, not to gods or kings, but to lines of code.

The Rapid Rise and Hidden Risks of AI Dependence

ChatGPT was launched a mere three years ago, and already a global survey found that an overwhelming majority of people had engaged with artificial intelligence in the preceding half-year. Whether contemplating a breakup or selecting a vote, individuals are looking to machines for guidance. Data suggests a large majority of user queries relate to personal life matters. Even more intriguing than our use of AI for advice is what happens when we allow it speak for us. Composition is now among the most common uses for generative AI, second only to everyday tasks. The celebrated American author Joan Didion once remarked, “I write entirely to discover what I am thinking.” What transpires when we cease writing? Do we lose that path?

Alarmingly, some evidence suggests the outcome may be yes. A study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used brain monitoring to observe the mental engagement of participants who had could use AI, traditional search engines, or nothing. Those who could rely on AI displayed the lowest brain activity and had trouble quoting their own work. Maybe most troubling was that over time, individuals in the AI group grew progressively lazier, pasting 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 offload accountability. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm argued that the appeal of authoritarianism could be understood by a preference to give up autonomy in for the sake of the comforting security of subordination. AI presents a digital method of surrendering the weight of having to think and choose.

The Opacity Dilemma: Faith Over Reason

AI's greatest allure is its ability to perform tasks outside our minds – analyzing oceans of data at lightning pace. Stuck in the car in Marseille, this was, ultimately, why I opted to believe the app over my companion (a decision she interpreted as an affront). With access to all the data, certainly the algorithm must know best – or so I thought.

The fundamental problem is that AI is a opaque system. It generates knowledge, but not always fostering human comprehension. We cannot fully grasp the process behind its decisions – even its creators admit this. Nor can we check its logic against clear, objective criteria. So when we heed AI's advice, we are not being guided by reason. We are back in the realm of belief. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, side with the machine – that may become our future guiding principle.

Using Without Losing: The Critical Balance

AI can be a powerful tool for humanity in scientific pursuit. It can aid in medical research, liberate us from "bullshit jobs", or manage taxes – duties that demand little thought and offer little satisfaction. This is beneficial. But Kant and his peers did not advocate for enlightenment just so humans could assemble better furniture or have extra free time. Critical thinking was not just about efficiency – it was a practice of freedom and human self-determination.

Human thought is inherently messy and fallible, but it compels us to debate, to doubt, to challenge concepts – and to acknowledge the limits of our own understanding. It builds confidence, both personally and collectively. For Kant, the exercise of reason was never solely about acquiring knowledge; it was about enabling people to become authors of their own lives, and to oppose domination. It was about building a ethical society grounded in the shared principle of rational discourse, rather than blind belief.

With all the undeniable benefits AI brings, the paramount challenge remains: how can we leverage its promise of superhuman intelligence without eroding human reasoning, the cornerstone 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.