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

A minor event, perhaps. But one that captures a central dilemma of our time, where digital tools touches nearly every facet of existence: whom do we trust more – other people and our personal instincts, or the algorithm?

The Enlightenment's Promise and Our Modern Relapse

The renowned German philosopher Immanuel Kant once defined the Enlightenment as "man's release from its self-inflicted immaturity." This state, he wrote, "represents the inability to use one's personal reason without guidance from an external source." For centuries, that directing force for human thought was often the priest, the monarch, or the landowner – figures purporting to channel God's voice. To explain natural events like volcanic eruptions, people looked for explanations in theology. In shaping the social world, from economics to love, faith served as the primary guide.

“Sapere aude!” or “Have courage to use your own understanding!”

Kant argued that humans always possessed the capacity for reason. They just didn't have the boldness to employ it. With upheavals in the 18th century, a new dawn arrived: reason would supplant superstition, and the intellect, liberated from authority, would become the engine of progress and a better world.

Today, 250 years later, one might wonder if we are quietly regressing into a form of dependency. An app suggesting a driving route is merely the start. Artificial intelligence threatens to become our contemporary authority – a silent guide that influences our choices and behaviors. We risk ceding the historically earned courage to reason for ourselves – and now, not to gods or kings, but to computer programs.

The Swift Adoption and Subtle Dangers of Algorithmic Reliance

ChatGPT was launched only in 2022, and already a recent study found that an overwhelming majority of people had used AI in the preceding half-year. Whether deciding on ending a relationship or selecting a vote, individuals are increasingly turning to machines for counsel. Data suggests a large majority of user queries concern non-work topics. Even more intriguing than our use of AI for judgment is what occurs when we allow it speak for us. Composition is now one of the most common 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 transpires when we cease writing? Do we lose that path?

Alarmingly, some evidence hints the answer may be affirmative. A study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used electroencephalography to track the mental engagement of essay writers who had access to AI, traditional search engines, or nothing. Those who could use AI displayed the least cognitive engagement and had trouble accurately recalling their own work. Maybe most troubling was that over time, individuals in the AI group became increasingly reliant, pasting large sections of text.

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

Of course, AI's appeal lies in its efficiency. It saves time, minimizes work and – importantly – offers a novel way to abdicate responsibility. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm proposed that the rise of fascism could be partly explained by a human tendency to give up autonomy in exchange for the reassuring certainty of subordination. AI presents a modern avenue for relinquishing the weight of having to decide for oneself.

The Black Box Problem: Faith Over Reason

AI's primary draw is its capacity to accomplish things outside our minds – sifting through oceans of data at lightning pace. Sitting in the car in Marseille, this was, after all, why I chose to trust the app over my friend (a decision she interpreted as an affront). With access to all the data, certainly the algorithm must know best – or so I believed.

The fundamental problem is that AI operates as a black box. It produces knowledge, but without necessarily deepening human understanding. We cannot fully grasp the process behind its decisions – including its creators admit this. Nor can we check its logic against clear, objective criteria. So when we follow AI's advice, we are not being led by logic. We are returning to the domain of faith. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, trust the machine – that may become our future guiding principle.

Harnessing Without Eroding: The Essential Challenge

AI can be a formidable ally for mankind in rational inquiry. It can help medical research, free us from "bullshit jobs", or manage administrative chores – duties that demand little thought and are unfulfilling. All to the good. But Kant and his contemporaries did not advocate for reason over faith just so humans could assemble better furniture or have extra free time. Independent thought was not merely about efficiency – it was a discipline of liberty and human emancipation.

Human thought is inherently messy and error-prone, but it compels us to argue, to question, to challenge concepts – and to recognize the boundaries of our own understanding. It fosters confidence, both personally and collectively. For Kant, the use of reason was never only about information; it was about empowering people to become authors of their own destinies, 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 advantages AI offers, the key question is this: how can we harness its potential of superhuman intelligence without undermining human rationality, the bedrock of the Enlightenment and of liberal democracy itself? That is likely one of the central dilemmas of our century. It is a question we must strive not to delegate to the algorithm.