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This past summer, I was caught in congested traffic on the sweltering streets of Marseille. At an intersection, my friend in the front seat advised a right turn toward a famous spot for fish soup. However, the navigation app on my phone commanded us to go forward. Weary and overheated, I heeded the app's advice. Moments later, we were stuck at a roadwork site.

A minor incident, perhaps. But one that captures a defining dilemma of our time, where technology touches almost every aspect of our lives: who gets our trust to a greater degree – fellow humans and our own intuition, or the machine?

The Enlightenment's Promise and A Contemporary Backslide

The renowned German philosopher Immanuel Kant famously described the Enlightenment as "humanity's emergence from its self-imposed nonage." This state, he argued, "represents the inability to use one's own understanding without guidance from another." For centuries, that directing force for human thought was often the clergyman, the monarch, or the feudal lord – entities purporting to channel divine will. To comprehend natural events like volcanic eruptions, people looked for explanations in religion. In shaping the social world, from economics to love, religious doctrine served as the main compass.

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

Kant maintained that humans had the capacity for reason. They simply lacked the confidence to use it. With upheavals in the 18th century, a fresh era arrived: logic would supplant blind faith, and the intellect, freed from dogma, would become the driver of progress and a better world.

Now, 250 years later, one might question if we are slipping back into a form of intellectual immaturity. An app dictating a direction is just one example. AI risks becoming our new "other" – a silent overseer that steers our decisions and behaviors. We are in danger of ceding the hard-won autonomy to think independently – and now, not to deities or rulers, but to lines of code.

The Swift Adoption and Hidden Risks of AI Dependence

ChatGPT debuted a mere three years ago, and already a global survey indicated that an overwhelming majority of respondents had used AI in the preceding half-year. Whether contemplating ending a relationship or selecting a vote, individuals are looking to machines for guidance. Research suggests a significant portion of user prompts concern non-work topics. Even more striking than our use of AI for advice is what occurs when we allow it express for us. Composition is now one of the top uses for generative AI, second only to practical requests. The late American author Joan Didion once remarked, “I write entirely to find out what I am thinking.” What transpires when we cease writing? Do we lose that path?

Worryingly, some evidence suggests the outcome may be affirmative. A study conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used brain monitoring to track the cognitive activity of essay writers who had could use AI, Google, or no aids. Those who could rely on AI displayed the least cognitive engagement and had difficulty accurately recalling their own work. Maybe most troubling was that after a few months, individuals in the AI group grew progressively lazier, copying entire blocks of text.

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

Certainly, AI's attraction lies in its convenience. It is fast, minimizes work and – importantly – offers a new method to abdicate responsibility. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm argued that the rise of fascism could be understood by a human tendency to give up autonomy in exchange for the comforting security of subordination. AI offers a modern 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 human capability – analyzing oceans of data at unprecedented speed. Sitting in the car in Marseille, this was, after all, why I chose to believe the app over my friend (a decision she took as an affront). With knowledge of real-time information, certainly the algorithm had superior insight – or so I thought.

The core issue is that AI is a opaque system. It generates knowledge, but without necessarily deepening human comprehension. We cannot fully grasp the process behind its decisions – including its creators acknowledge the opacity. Nor can we check its logic against clear, objective criteria. So when we heed AI's advice, we are not being led by logic. We are back in the realm of belief. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, trust the machine – that could be our future credo.

Harnessing Without Eroding: The Critical Balance

AI can be a powerful tool for mankind in rational inquiry. It can help medical research, liberate us from "bullshit jobs", or manage administrative chores – work that demand little thought and are unfulfilling. All to the good. But Kant and his contemporaries did not champion reason over faith just so humans could optimize chores or have more leisure. Critical thinking was not merely about efficiency – 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 recognize the limits of our own knowledge. It builds confidence, both individually and as a society. For Kant, the exercise of reason was never only about acquiring knowledge; it was about empowering people to become authors of their own destinies, and to resist domination. It was about building a ethical society grounded in the common foundation of reason and debate, rather than blind belief.

With all the advantages AI brings, the paramount challenge remains: how can we harness its potential of advanced capability without undermining human reasoning, the bedrock 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 outsource to the machine.