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This past summer, I found myself navigating in congested traffic on the sweltering streets of a southern French city. At an intersection, my friend in the passenger seat suggested a right turn toward a renowned spot for fish soup. Yet, the digital guide on my phone instructed us to continue straight. Weary and overheated, I followed the algorithm's directive. Minutes later, we were stuck at a construction site.

A seemingly trivial event, maybe. But one that captures a central question of our era, where technology touches nearly every facet of our lives: who gets our trust to a greater degree – other people 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, "represents the inability to use one's own understanding without direction from another." For ages, that directing force for human thought was frequently the clergyman, the king, or the feudal lord – entities claiming to channel God's voice. To comprehend natural events like volcanic eruptions, people sought answers in theology. In shaping the social world, from commerce to love, religious doctrine acted as the primary guide.

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

Kant argued that humans had the capacity for reason. They just didn't have the boldness to employ it. With upheavals in America and France, a fresh era arrived: reason would replace superstition, and the intellect, liberated from dogma, would become the engine of advancement and a better world.

Now, 250 years later, one might question if we are slipping back into a state of dependency. An app dictating a driving route is merely the start. Artificial intelligence threatens to become our contemporary authority – a unseen guide that steers our choices and behaviors. We are in danger of relinquishing the historically earned autonomy to think independently – and this time, not to deities or rulers, but to lines of code.

The Rapid Rise and Subtle Dangers of AI Dependence

ChatGPT was launched only in 2022, and already a recent study found that an vast number of respondents had used AI in the preceding half-year. Whether contemplating ending a relationship or selecting a vote, individuals are increasingly turning to algorithms for guidance. Research suggests a significant portion of user queries concern non-work topics. Even more striking than our reliance on AI for judgment is what happens when we allow it express for us. Composition is now among the most common uses for generative AI, just behind practical requests. The celebrated American author Joan Didion once remarked, “I write entirely to find out what I am thinking.” What occurs when we cease writing? Do we lose that path?

Alarmingly, emerging research suggests the answer may be affirmative. A study conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used brain monitoring to track the mental engagement of participants who had access to AI, Google, or nothing. Those who could rely on AI showed the least cognitive engagement and had trouble quoting their own work. Perhaps most troubling was that over time, participants in the AI group grew progressively lazier, pasting entire blocks of text.

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

Certainly, AI's appeal lies in 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 argued that the rise of fascism could be partly explained by a human tendency to give up personal freedom in exchange for the comforting security of subordination. AI presents a digital method of relinquishing the burden of having to think and choose.

The Black Box Problem: Trust Without Understanding

AI's primary draw is its capacity to perform tasks outside our minds – sifting through vast datasets at lightning pace. Sitting in the car in Marseille, this was, ultimately, why I opted to believe the machine over my friend (a choice she interpreted as an affront). With access to real-time information, surely the algorithm must know best – or so I believed.

The fundamental problem is that AI operates as a black box. It produces answers, but without necessarily fostering human comprehension. We do not truly know how AI reaches its decisions – even its creators acknowledge the opacity. Nor can we verify its logic against clear, objective criteria. So when we follow AI's recommendation, we are not being led by logic. We are returning to the domain of belief. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, trust the machine – that could be our future credo.

Using Without Losing: The Essential Challenge

AI can be a powerful tool for mankind in rational inquiry. It can help medical research, free us from "bullshit jobs", or handle taxes – work that are repetitive and offer little satisfaction. All to the good. But Kant and his peers did not champion reason over faith just so humans could assemble better furniture or have more leisure. Independent thought was not just about efficiency – it was a practice of liberty and human emancipation.

Human thought is often chaotic and fallible, but it compels us to debate, to question, to test ideas – and to acknowledge the boundaries of our own understanding. It builds confidence, both individually and as a society. For Kant, the use of reason was never only about acquiring knowledge; it was about enabling people to become authors of their own lives, and to oppose control. It was about creating a ethical society based on the shared principle of rational discourse, rather than unquestioning acceptance.

With all the advantages AI brings, the paramount challenge is this: how can we leverage its promise of superhuman intelligence without eroding human reasoning, the bedrock of the Enlightenment and of liberal democracy itself? That is likely one of the central dilemmas of our time. It is a question we would do well not to outsource to the algorithm.