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This recent season, I was caught in congested traffic on the scorching streets of Marseille. At a crossing, my friend in the passenger seat advised a right turn toward a renowned spot for bouillabaisse. However, the digital guide on my phone commanded us to continue straight. Weary and overheated, I followed the app's directive. Minutes later, we were stuck at a construction site.

A minor incident, maybe. But one that captures a defining dilemma of our time, where technology touches almost every aspect of our lives: who gets our trust more – fellow humans and our own intuition, or the machine?

A Call for Intellectual Maturity and A Contemporary Backslide

The influential German philosopher Immanuel Kant famously described the Enlightenment as "man's release from its self-imposed immaturity." This immaturity, he argued, "is the inability to use one's own understanding without direction from another." For centuries, that directing force for society was frequently the priest, the monarch, or the feudal lord – entities purporting to speak for God's voice. To explain phenomena like changing seasons, people sought answers in religion. In organizing the fabric of society, from economics to love, religious doctrine acted as the primary guide.

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

Kant argued that humans had the ability to think rationally. They simply lacked the boldness to use it. With upheavals in America and France, a new dawn arrived: reason would supplant blind faith, and the human mind, liberated from authority, would become the driver of progress and a more ethical world.

Today, two and a half centuries later, one might question if we are quietly regressing into a state of dependency. An app dictating a driving route is just one example. AI threatens to become our new "other" – a unseen overseer that influences our choices and actions. We are in danger of relinquishing the historically earned autonomy to think independently – and this time, not to gods or kings, but to lines of code.

The Swift Adoption and Subtle Dangers of AI Dependence

ChatGPT debuted a mere three years ago, and yet a recent study indicated that an vast number of respondents had used AI in the preceding half-year. Whether contemplating ending a relationship or choosing a candidate, individuals are increasingly turning to machines for guidance. Research suggests a significant portion of user queries concern non-work topics. Even more intriguing than our use of AI for judgment is what happens when we allow it speak for us. Writing is now among the top uses for tools like ChatGPT, just behind practical requests. The celebrated American author Joan Didion famously said, “I write entirely to find out what I am thinking.” What transpires when we cease writing? Do we lose that path?

Worryingly, some evidence suggests the outcome 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 rely on AI showed the lowest cognitive engagement and had difficulty accurately recalling their own work. Perhaps most concerning was that after a few months, participants in the AI group grew increasingly reliant, copying large sections of text.

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

Certainly, AI's attraction lies in its efficiency. It is fast, minimizes work and – importantly – offers a novel way to offload 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 presents a modern method of relinquishing the burden of having to think and choose.

The Black Box Problem: Faith Over Reason

AI's primary draw is its capacity to accomplish things outside human capability – analyzing oceans of data at unprecedented speed. Stuck in the car in Marseille, this was, after all, why I chose to believe the app over my friend (a choice she took as an affront). With knowledge of real-time information, surely the app must know best – or so I thought.

The fundamental problem is that AI operates as a black box. It generates answers, but without necessarily deepening human understanding. We do not truly know the process behind its conclusions – including its creators admit this. Nor can we verify its reasoning against transparent standards. So when we follow AI's advice, we are not being led by logic. We are back in the realm of faith. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, side with the machine – that could be our future credo.

Using Without Losing: The Critical Balance

AI can be a powerful tool for mankind in rational inquiry. It can aid in inventing drugs, free us from "bullshit jobs", or manage taxes – duties that demand little thought and are unfulfilling. This is beneficial. But Kant and his peers did not advocate for reason over faith just so humans could optimize chores or have more leisure. Independent thought was not merely 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 argue, to question, to challenge concepts – and to recognize the limits of our own understanding. It builds self-reliance, both personally and collectively. For Kant, the use of reason was never only about acquiring knowledge; it was about empowering people to become authors of their own lives, and to resist control. It was about creating a ethical society grounded in the shared principle of rational discourse, rather than unquestioning acceptance.

With all the advantages AI offers, the key question remains: how can we harness its potential of superhuman intelligence without eroding human reasoning, the bedrock of the Enlightenment and of liberal democracy 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.