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This past summer, I found myself navigating in congested traffic on the sweltering streets of Marseille. At a crossing, my companion in the passenger seat advised a right turn toward a famous spot for fish soup. However, the digital guide on my phone instructed us to continue straight. Weary and in a stifling car, I heeded the algorithm's advice. Moments later, we were stranded at a construction site.

A minor incident, perhaps. But one that captures a central dilemma of our era, where digital tools touches nearly every facet of our lives: whom do we trust more – fellow humans and our own intuition, or the algorithm?

A Call for Intellectual Maturity and A Contemporary Backslide

The renowned German philosopher Immanuel Kant famously described the Enlightenment as "humanity's emergence from its self-inflicted nonage." This immaturity, he argued, "is the incapacity to use one's personal reason without direction from an external source." For centuries, that directing force for human thought was frequently the clergyman, the monarch, or the landowner – figures claiming to channel God's voice. To comprehend natural events like volcanic eruptions, people sought answers in religion. In organizing the fabric of society, from commerce to love, religious doctrine acted as the main compass.

“Sapere aude!” or “Dare to use your reason!”

Kant argued that humans had the ability to think rationally. They simply lacked the confidence to employ it. With revolutions in the 18th century, a fresh era emerged: logic would replace blind faith, and the intellect, freed from authority, would become the driver of advancement and a better world.

Today, 250 years later, one might question if we are quietly regressing into a form of dependency. An app suggesting a direction is merely the start. Artificial intelligence risks becoming our new "other" – a silent guide that influences our choices and actions. We risk relinquishing the historically earned autonomy to think independently – and this time, not to deities or rulers, but to lines of code.

The Swift Adoption and Hidden Risks of Algorithmic Reliance

ChatGPT was launched only in 2022, and already a recent study indicated that an vast number of respondents had engaged with artificial intelligence in the preceding half-year. Whether contemplating a breakup or selecting a vote, individuals are looking to algorithms for counsel. Data suggests a large majority of user queries concern non-work topics. Even more intriguing than our use of AI for advice is what happens when we allow it speak for us. Writing is now among the top uses for tools like ChatGPT, second only to practical requests. The late American author Joan Didion once remarked, “I write purely to discover what I am thinking.” What transpires when we stop composing? Do we cease discovering?

Alarmingly, emerging research hints the answer may be affirmative. A study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used electroencephalography to observe the cognitive activity of essay writers who had access to AI, Google, or nothing. Those who could use AI displayed the least cognitive engagement and had trouble quoting their own work. Maybe most troubling was that over time, individuals in the AI group became progressively lazier, pasting entire blocks of text.

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

Of course, AI's attraction stems from its convenience. It saves time, minimizes work and – importantly – offers a new method to offload accountability. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm argued that the appeal of authoritarianism could be partly explained by a human tendency to give up autonomy in for the sake of the reassuring certainty of subordination. AI offers a digital avenue for relinquishing the burden of having to think and choose.

The Opacity Dilemma: Faith Over Reason

AI's primary draw is its ability to accomplish things outside human capability – sifting through vast datasets at lightning pace. Stuck in the car in Marseille, this was, after all, why I chose to believe the machine over my friend (a choice she interpreted as an affront). With access to all the data, surely the algorithm had superior insight – or so I believed.

The core issue is that AI is a opaque system. It generates knowledge, but not always deepening human understanding. We do not truly know how AI reaches its conclusions – including its programmers acknowledge the opacity. Nor can we verify its logic against clear, objective criteria. So when we follow AI's advice, we are not being guided by reason. We are returning to the realm of faith. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, side with the machine – that could be our future guiding principle.

Harnessing Without Eroding: The Critical Balance

AI can be a powerful tool for mankind in scientific pursuit. It can aid in inventing drugs, free us from tedious tasks, or manage administrative chores – duties that demand little thought and are unfulfilling. This is beneficial. But Kant and his peers did not advocate for enlightenment just so humans could assemble better furniture or have more leisure. Critical thinking was not just about efficiency – it was a discipline of liberty 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 recognize the boundaries of our own understanding. It fosters self-reliance, both personally and collectively. 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 domination. It was about building a ethical society based on the shared principle of reason and debate, rather than blind belief.

With all the advantages AI offers, the paramount challenge is this: how can we leverage its promise of superhuman intelligence without eroding human rationality, the bedrock of the Enlightenment and of free societies themselves? That is likely one of the central dilemmas of our time. It is a question we would do well not to delegate to the algorithm.