🔗 Share this article

This recent season, I was caught in congested traffic on the scorching streets of a southern French city. At a crossing, my companion in the passenger seat suggested a right turn toward a famous spot for bouillabaisse. Yet, the navigation app on my phone instructed us to continue straight. Fatigued and overheated, I heeded the app's directive. Moments later, we were stranded at a construction site.

A minor incident, perhaps. But one that captures a defining question of our era, where technology permeates almost every aspect of existence: whom do we trust to a greater degree – other people and our own intuition, or the algorithm?

A Call for Intellectual Maturity and A Contemporary Backslide

The influential German philosopher Immanuel Kant famously described the Enlightenment as "man's release from its self-inflicted immaturity." This immaturity, he wrote, "represents the inability to use one's own understanding without guidance from an external source." For ages, that directing force for human thought was frequently the priest, the king, or the feudal lord – figures claiming to channel divine will. To comprehend phenomena like volcanic eruptions, people sought answers in theology. In shaping the fabric of society, from economics to matters of the heart, religious doctrine acted as the main compass.

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

Kant argued that humans had the capacity for reason. They simply lacked the boldness to use it. With revolutions in the 18th century, a new dawn emerged: reason would replace superstition, and the intellect, freed from authority, would become the driver of advancement and a more ethical world.

Now, two and a half centuries later, one might question if we are slipping back into a state of intellectual immaturity. An app dictating a direction is just one example. Artificial intelligence risks becoming our contemporary authority – a unseen guide that steers our choices and behaviors. We risk ceding the historically earned courage to reason for ourselves – and now, not to gods or kings, but to lines of code.

The Rapid Rise and Hidden Risks of AI Dependence

ChatGPT debuted a mere three years ago, and yet a global survey found that an vast number of respondents had used AI in the preceding half-year. Whether contemplating ending a relationship or choosing a candidate, individuals are increasingly turning to machines for counsel. Data suggests a large majority of user prompts concern personal life matters. Even more intriguing than our use of AI for advice is what happens when we allow it speak for us. Writing is now among the top uses for generative AI, just behind practical requests. The late American author Joan Didion once remarked, “I write purely to find out what I am thinking.” What occurs when we cease writing? Do we lose that path?

Alarmingly, some evidence hints the outcome may be yes. A study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used brain monitoring to observe the cognitive activity of participants who had access to AI, traditional search engines, or no aids. Those who could rely on AI showed the least brain activity and had trouble quoting their own work. Perhaps most concerning was that over time, individuals in the AI group grew progressively lazier, pasting large sections of text.

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

Certainly, AI's appeal lies in its efficiency. It saves time, reduces effort and – critically – offers a new method 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 personal freedom in exchange for the comforting security of subordination. AI offers a digital method of surrendering the weight of having to decide for oneself.

The Black Box Problem: Trust Without Understanding

AI's primary draw is its ability to accomplish things beyond human capability – analyzing vast datasets at lightning pace. Stuck in the car in Marseille, this was, ultimately, why I chose to believe the app over my friend (a decision she interpreted as an affront). With access to real-time information, surely the algorithm must know best – or so I believed.

The core issue is that AI operates as a opaque system. It produces answers, but not always fostering human comprehension. We cannot fully grasp the process behind its decisions – including its programmers admit this. Nor can we verify its logic against clear, objective criteria. So when we follow AI's recommendation, we are not being guided by reason. We are returning to the realm of faith. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, side with the machine – that may become our 21st-century guiding principle.

Harnessing Without Eroding: The Essential Challenge

AI can be a formidable ally for mankind in rational inquiry. It can help medical research, liberate us from "bullshit jobs", or manage taxes – work that demand little thought and offer little satisfaction. This is beneficial. But Kant and his contemporaries did not champion enlightenment just so humans could optimize chores or have extra free time. Independent thought was not just about efficiency – it was a discipline of liberty and human self-determination.

Human thought is often chaotic and error-prone, but it compels us to argue, to question, to test ideas – and to acknowledge the boundaries of our own understanding. It fosters confidence, both individually and as a society. For Kant, the exercise of reason was never solely about acquiring knowledge; it was about enabling people to become agents of their own destinies, and to oppose domination. It was about creating a moral community based on the common foundation of reason and debate, rather than unquestioning acceptance.

With all the advantages AI offers, the paramount challenge is this: how can we harness its promise of superhuman intelligence without undermining human rationality, the bedrock of the Enlightenment and of liberal democracy themselves? That is likely one of the central dilemmas of our time. It is a question we must strive not to outsource to the algorithm.