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This past summer, I found myself navigating in congested traffic on the scorching streets of Marseille. At an intersection, my companion in the passenger seat advised a right turn toward a renowned spot for bouillabaisse. Yet, the navigation app on my phone instructed us to continue straight. Weary and overheated, I followed the app's advice. Minutes later, we were stranded at a roadwork site.

A minor event, perhaps. But one that captures a central dilemma of our era, where digital tools permeates nearly every facet of our lives: who gets our trust to a greater degree – fellow humans and our own intuition, or the machine?

A Call for Intellectual Maturity and Our Modern Relapse

The influential German philosopher Immanuel Kant once defined the Enlightenment as "man's release from its self-inflicted immaturity." This state, he argued, "is the incapacity to use one's personal reason without direction from another." For ages, that directing force for human thought was often the clergyman, the monarch, or the feudal lord – entities purporting to channel God's voice. To comprehend natural events like changing seasons, people looked for explanations in theology. In shaping the social world, from commerce to matters of the heart, religious doctrine acted as the primary guide.

“Sapere aude!” or “Dare to use your own understanding!”

Kant argued that humans always possessed the ability to think rationally. They just didn't have the boldness to employ it. With upheavals in America and France, a new dawn emerged: logic would supplant superstition, and the human mind, freed from authority, would become the driver of progress and a more ethical world.

Now, two and a half centuries later, one might question if we are slipping back into a form of intellectual immaturity. An app suggesting a direction is just one example. Artificial intelligence threatens to become our contemporary authority – a unseen overseer that influences our decisions and behaviors. We risk ceding the hard-won courage to reason for ourselves – and this time, not to deities or rulers, but to lines of code.

The Rapid Rise and Subtle Dangers of Algorithmic Reliance

ChatGPT debuted only in 2022, and already a recent study indicated that an vast number of people had engaged with artificial intelligence in the preceding half-year. Whether deciding on ending a relationship or choosing a candidate, individuals are looking to algorithms for counsel. Research suggests a large majority of user queries relate to personal life matters. Even more intriguing than our reliance on AI for judgment is what occurs when we allow it express for us. Writing is now among the most common uses for tools like ChatGPT, second only to everyday tasks. The late American author Joan Didion famously said, “I write purely to find out what I am thinking.” What occurs when we cease writing? Do we cease discovering?

Alarmingly, emerging research suggests the outcome may be affirmative. A study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used brain monitoring to observe the cognitive activity of essay writers who had access to AI, traditional search engines, or no aids. Those who could rely on AI showed the least cognitive engagement and had difficulty quoting their own work. Perhaps most troubling was that over time, participants in the AI group grew increasingly reliant, pasting large sections of text.

“Laziness and cowardice,” Kant wrote, “are the reasons why so great a proportion of men … stay in perpetual nonage.”

Certainly, AI's appeal stems from its convenience. It is fast, minimizes work and – importantly – offers a novel way to offload accountability. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm proposed that the appeal of authoritarianism could be understood by a human tendency to give up autonomy in for the sake of the reassuring certainty of subordination. AI presents a modern avenue for surrendering the weight of having to decide for oneself.

The Opacity Dilemma: Faith Over Reason

AI's primary draw is its ability to accomplish things outside our minds – analyzing oceans of data at lightning pace. Sitting in the car in Marseille, this was, ultimately, why I chose to believe the machine over my companion (a choice she took 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 operates as a black box. It generates knowledge, but without necessarily deepening human comprehension. We cannot fully grasp how AI reaches its conclusions – even its creators acknowledge the opacity. Nor can we check its logic against transparent standards. So when we follow AI's advice, we are not being guided by reason. We are returning to the domain of belief. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, side with the machine – that could be our 21st-century credo.

Using Without Losing: The Critical Balance

AI can be a powerful tool for mankind in scientific pursuit. It can aid in medical research, liberate us from tedious tasks, or handle taxes – duties that demand little thought and are unfulfilling. All to the good. But Kant and his peers did not advocate for reason over faith just so humans could optimize chores or have extra free time. Independent thought was not merely about efficiency – it was a discipline of liberty and human self-determination.

Human thought is inherently messy and error-prone, but it forces us to debate, to doubt, to challenge concepts – and to recognize the limits of our own understanding. It fosters self-reliance, both personally and as a society. For Kant, the exercise of reason was never solely about information; it was about enabling people to become agents of their own destinies, and to oppose control. It was about building a ethical society based on the shared principle of rational discourse, rather than blind belief.

With all the advantages AI offers, the paramount challenge is this: how can we harness its promise of superhuman intelligence without undermining human reasoning, the cornerstone of the Enlightenment and of liberal democracy themselves? That may be one of the defining questions of our century. It is a question we would do well not to outsource to the machine.