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This past summer, I found myself navigating in gridlocked traffic on the scorching streets of a southern French city. At an intersection, my friend in the front seat suggested a right turn toward a renowned spot for bouillabaisse. However, the digital guide on my phone instructed us to go forward. Weary and overheated, I followed the algorithm's directive. Minutes later, we were stuck at a construction site.

A seemingly trivial incident, perhaps. But one that encapsulates a central dilemma of our time, where digital tools touches nearly every facet of our lives: whom do we trust more – other people and our personal instincts, or the machine?

The Enlightenment's Promise and A Contemporary Backslide

The renowned German philosopher Immanuel Kant famously described the Enlightenment as "humanity's emergence from its self-inflicted nonage." This state, he argued, "represents the inability to use one's personal reason without guidance from another." For ages, that guiding "other" for human thought was often the priest, the monarch, or the landowner – figures purporting 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, faith acted as the main compass.

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

Kant argued that humans had the ability to think rationally. They just didn't have the boldness to use it. With revolutions in America and France, a new dawn arrived: reason would replace blind faith, and the intellect, liberated from authority, would become the driver of progress and a more ethical world.

Today, two and a half centuries later, one might wonder if we are slipping back into a form of dependency. An app dictating a driving route is merely the start. AI threatens to become our contemporary authority – a silent guide that steers our decisions and actions. We are in danger of relinquishing the historically earned courage to think independently – and this time, not to deities or rulers, but to computer programs.

The Rapid Rise and Hidden Risks of AI Dependence

ChatGPT was launched a mere three years ago, and already a recent study found that an overwhelming majority of people had used AI in the previous six months. Whether deciding on a breakup or selecting a vote, individuals are looking to algorithms for counsel. Data suggests a significant portion of user prompts relate to non-work topics. Even more striking than our reliance on AI for judgment is what happens when we let it speak for us. Composition is now one of the most common uses for tools like ChatGPT, just behind practical requests. The late American author Joan Didion once remarked, “I write purely to find out what I am thinking.” What occurs when we cease writing? Do we lose that path?

Worryingly, some evidence hints the answer may be affirmative. A study conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used brain monitoring to track the cognitive activity of participants who had access to AI, Google, or no aids. Those who could rely on AI showed the lowest brain activity and had trouble quoting their own work. Perhaps most troubling was that after a few months, participants in the AI group grew progressively lazier, pasting large sections of text.

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

Certainly, AI's appeal stems from its convenience. It saves time, minimizes work and – critically – 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 preference to surrender personal freedom in exchange for the reassuring certainty of obedience. AI presents a digital method of surrendering the weight of having to decide for oneself.

The Opacity Dilemma: Faith Over Reason

AI's primary draw is its capacity to perform tasks outside human capability – analyzing vast datasets at lightning pace. Stuck in the car in Marseille, this was, ultimately, why I opted to believe the app over my companion (a decision she interpreted as an affront). With knowledge of real-time information, certainly the app must know best – or so I thought.

The fundamental problem is that AI is a black box. It generates answers, but without necessarily fostering human understanding. We cannot fully grasp how AI reaches its decisions – including its creators acknowledge the opacity. Nor can we verify its reasoning against clear, objective criteria. So when we follow 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, trust the machine – that may become our 21st-century credo.

Harnessing Without Eroding: The Critical Balance

AI can be a formidable ally for mankind in scientific pursuit. It can help inventing drugs, liberate us from tedious tasks, or handle administrative chores – work that are repetitive and are unfulfilling. This is beneficial. But Kant and his peers did not advocate for reason over faith just so humans could assemble better furniture or have more leisure. Critical thinking was not just about productivity – it was a discipline of freedom and human emancipation.

Human thought is often chaotic and fallible, but it forces us to debate, to doubt, to test ideas – and to acknowledge the boundaries of our own understanding. It builds confidence, both individually and as a society. For Kant, the exercise of reason was never only about information; it was about empowering people to become authors of their own destinies, and to resist control. It was about creating a ethical society based on the common foundation of reason and debate, rather than unquestioning acceptance.

With all the undeniable benefits AI brings, the paramount challenge is this: how can we leverage its promise of advanced capability without eroding human rationality, the cornerstone of the Enlightenment and of free societies itself? That is likely one of the central dilemmas of our century. It is a question we would do well not to outsource to the algorithm.