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This recent season, I was caught in congested traffic on the scorching streets of a southern French city. At an intersection, my friend in the front seat advised a right turn toward a famous spot for fish soup. However, the digital guide on my phone commanded us to continue straight. Weary and overheated, I followed the algorithm's advice. Minutes later, we were stranded at a roadwork site.

A seemingly trivial incident, maybe. But one that encapsulates a defining dilemma of our time, where digital tools permeates almost every aspect of existence: whom do we trust to a greater degree – other people and our personal instincts, or the machine?

The Enlightenment's Promise and A Contemporary Backslide

The influential German philosopher Immanuel Kant once defined the Enlightenment as "humanity's emergence from its self-imposed immaturity." This state, he argued, "is the inability to use one's own understanding without direction from another." For centuries, that guiding "other" for human thought was often the clergyman, the monarch, or the landowner – figures purporting to speak for God's voice. To explain natural events like changing seasons, people looked for explanations in religion. In organizing the fabric of society, from economics to love, religious doctrine acted as the primary guide.

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

Kant argued that humans had the ability to think rationally. They just didn't have the boldness to employ it. With upheavals in the 18th century, a fresh era emerged: logic would supplant superstition, and the human mind, freed from authority, would become the driver of advancement and a better world.

Today, two and a half centuries later, one might wonder if we are quietly regressing into a state of intellectual immaturity. An app suggesting a driving route is merely the start. AI threatens to become our new "other" – a silent guide that steers our decisions 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 computer programs.

The Swift Adoption and Subtle Dangers of Algorithmic Reliance

ChatGPT debuted a mere three years ago, and already a recent study found that an vast number of people had used AI in the previous six months. Whether deciding on ending a relationship or selecting a vote, individuals are increasingly turning to machines for guidance. Research suggests a large majority of user prompts concern non-work topics. Even more striking than our reliance on AI for advice is what occurs when we allow it speak for us. Writing is now among the top uses for tools like ChatGPT, second only to everyday tasks. The celebrated American author Joan Didion famously said, “I write entirely to find out what I am thinking.” What transpires when we stop composing? Do we cease discovering?

Alarmingly, emerging research hints the outcome may be yes. A study conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used electroencephalography to observe the cognitive activity of participants who had could use AI, Google, or no aids. Those who could use AI showed the lowest cognitive engagement and had trouble accurately recalling their own work. Perhaps most troubling was that over time, participants in the AI group grew increasingly reliant, copying large sections of text.

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

Of course, AI's attraction lies in its efficiency. It saves time, reduces effort and – critically – offers a novel way to abdicate responsibility. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm proposed that the appeal of authoritarianism could be understood by a preference to give up personal freedom in exchange for the comforting security of obedience. AI offers a modern avenue for relinquishing the weight of having to think and choose.

The Opacity Dilemma: Trust Without Understanding

AI's primary draw is its ability to accomplish things outside human capability – sifting through vast datasets at unprecedented speed. Sitting in the car in Marseille, this was, after all, why I opted to believe the app over my companion (a choice she interpreted as an insult). 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 opaque system. It produces answers, but not always fostering human understanding. We do not truly know the process behind its conclusions – including its creators admit this. Nor can we check 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.

Harnessing Without Eroding: The Critical Balance

AI can be a formidable ally for mankind in scientific pursuit. It can help medical research, liberate us from tedious tasks, or handle administrative chores – work that are repetitive and offer little satisfaction. All to the good. But Kant and his contemporaries did not champion reason over faith just so humans could optimize chores or have more leisure. Critical thinking was not just about productivity – it was a discipline of liberty and human emancipation.

Human thought is inherently messy and fallible, but it forces us to debate, to doubt, to challenge concepts – and to acknowledge the boundaries of our own knowledge. It fosters self-reliance, both individually and collectively. For Kant, the use of reason was never solely about information; it was about empowering people to become agents of their own lives, and to oppose control. It was about creating a moral community grounded in the common foundation of reason and debate, rather than blind belief.

With all the undeniable benefits AI brings, the key question remains: how can we leverage its potential of advanced capability without undermining human reasoning, the cornerstone of the Enlightenment and of liberal democracy itself? That is likely one of the central dilemmas of our time. It is a question we must strive not to delegate to the machine.