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This past summer, I found myself navigating in gridlocked traffic on the scorching streets of a southern French city. At a crossing, my friend in the front seat advised a right turn toward a famous spot for bouillabaisse. However, the navigation app on my phone commanded us to continue straight. Weary and in a stifling car, I heeded the app's directive. Minutes later, we were stuck at a roadwork site.

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

A Call for Intellectual Maturity and Our Modern Relapse

The renowned German philosopher Immanuel Kant once defined the Enlightenment as "man's release from its self-inflicted nonage." This immaturity, he argued, "is the incapacity to use one's personal reason without guidance from another." For centuries, that directing force for human thought was frequently the clergyman, the monarch, or the landowner – figures purporting to speak for God's voice. To comprehend natural events like volcanic eruptions, people sought answers in theology. In shaping the fabric of society, from commerce to love, religious doctrine acted as the primary guide.

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

Kant maintained that humans always possessed the capacity for reason. They just didn't have the boldness to use it. With upheavals in the 18th century, a new dawn arrived: reason would supplant superstition, and the intellect, liberated from dogma, would become the driver of progress and a more ethical world.

Today, 250 years later, one might wonder if we are slipping back into a state of intellectual immaturity. An app suggesting a driving route is merely the start. AI threatens to become our new "other" – a unseen overseer that steers our decisions and behaviors. We risk relinquishing the hard-won courage to think independently – and now, not to gods or kings, but to lines of code.

The Swift Adoption and Subtle Dangers of Algorithmic Reliance

ChatGPT was launched only in 2022, and yet a recent study found that an vast number of people had engaged with artificial intelligence in the previous six months. Whether deciding on ending a relationship or choosing a candidate, individuals are increasingly turning to algorithms for counsel. Research suggests a large majority of user prompts relate to non-work topics. Even more intriguing than our reliance on AI for judgment is what occurs when we let it express for us. Writing is now among the top uses for tools like ChatGPT, second only to practical requests. The celebrated 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?

Worryingly, some evidence hints the outcome 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, Google, or no aids. Those who could use AI displayed the least cognitive engagement and had trouble accurately recalling their own work. Perhaps most concerning was that over time, individuals in the AI group became progressively lazier, pasting large sections of text.

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

Of course, AI's appeal stems from its convenience. It saves time, minimizes work and – importantly – offers a new method to abdicate accountability. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm proposed that the appeal of authoritarianism could be partly explained by a human tendency to give up autonomy in exchange for the comforting security of obedience. AI offers a digital avenue for surrendering the weight of having to decide for oneself.

The Black Box Problem: Trust Without Understanding

AI's primary draw is its ability to perform tasks outside human capability – sifting through vast datasets at unprecedented speed. Sitting in the car in Marseille, this was, after all, why I chose to trust the app over my friend (a decision she took as an insult). With access to all the data, certainly the app had superior insight – or so I thought.

The fundamental problem is that AI is a black box. It produces knowledge, but without necessarily deepening human comprehension. We cannot fully grasp the process behind its decisions – even its programmers admit this. Nor can we check its reasoning against clear, objective criteria. So when we heed AI's recommendation, we are not being guided by reason. We are returning to the realm of belief. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, side with the machine – that may become our 21st-century guiding principle.

Using Without Losing: The Critical Balance

AI can be a formidable ally for humanity in rational inquiry. It can help inventing drugs, 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 reason over faith just so humans could assemble better furniture or have more leisure. Critical thinking was not just about efficiency – it was a practice of freedom and human self-determination.

Human thought is often chaotic and error-prone, but it compels us to debate, to doubt, to test ideas – and to acknowledge the limits of our own knowledge. It fosters confidence, both individually and as a society. For Kant, the use of reason was never solely about acquiring knowledge; it was about empowering people to become authors of their own destinies, and to oppose control. It was about creating a ethical society based on the shared principle of reason and debate, rather than unquestioning acceptance.

With all the undeniable benefits AI brings, the paramount challenge remains: how can we leverage its promise of advanced capability without eroding human reasoning, the bedrock of the Enlightenment and of free societies themselves? That may be one of the central dilemmas of our time. It is a question we would do well not to outsource to the algorithm.