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This past summer, I found myself navigating in congested traffic on the scorching streets of Marseille. At a crossing, my companion in the front seat suggested a right turn toward a famous spot for bouillabaisse. Yet, the navigation app on my phone instructed us to go forward. Weary and overheated, I heeded the algorithm's advice. Minutes later, we were stuck at a construction site.

A seemingly trivial event, maybe. But one that captures a central question of our time, where technology permeates nearly every facet of existence: who gets our trust to a greater degree – other people and our personal instincts, or the algorithm?

A Call for Intellectual Maturity and Our Modern Relapse

The influential 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 own understanding without guidance from an external source." For centuries, that directing force for society was frequently the clergyman, the king, or the feudal lord – figures claiming to channel divine will. To comprehend natural events like changing seasons, people looked for explanations in theology. In shaping the social world, from economics to love, faith acted as the primary guide.

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

Kant maintained that humans always possessed the ability to think rationally. They just didn't have the boldness to use it. With revolutions in America and France, a new dawn emerged: reason would supplant blind faith, and the intellect, freed from dogma, would become the engine of progress and a more ethical world.

Now, 250 years later, one might wonder if we are quietly regressing into a state of intellectual immaturity. An app dictating a direction is just one example. AI threatens to become our new "other" – a unseen guide that influences our decisions and actions. We are in danger of relinquishing the hard-won autonomy to reason for ourselves – and now, not to gods or kings, but to computer programs.

The Swift Adoption and Subtle Dangers of Algorithmic Reliance

ChatGPT was launched a mere three years ago, and yet a recent study found that an vast number of people had used AI in the previous six months. Whether contemplating ending a relationship or selecting a vote, individuals are increasingly turning to algorithms for counsel. Data suggests a significant portion of user prompts concern personal life matters. Even more intriguing than our use of AI for judgment is what occurs when we let it express for us. Composition is now one of the most common uses for generative AI, 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 cease discovering?

Worryingly, some evidence suggests the outcome may be affirmative. A study conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used electroencephalography to observe the mental engagement of essay writers who had could use AI, traditional search engines, or nothing. Those who could rely on AI showed the lowest brain activity and had difficulty quoting their own work. Maybe most concerning was that over time, individuals in the AI group grew progressively lazier, copying entire blocks of text.

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

Of course, AI's attraction lies in its efficiency. It is fast, minimizes work and – critically – offers a novel way to abdicate accountability. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm proposed that the appeal of authoritarianism could be partly explained by a human tendency to give up personal freedom in exchange for the comforting security of obedience. AI offers a modern method of surrendering the weight of having to think and choose.

The Opacity Dilemma: Faith Over Reason

AI's greatest allure is its ability to perform tasks outside our minds – analyzing oceans of data at unprecedented speed. Stuck in the car in Marseille, this was, after all, why I chose to believe the machine over my friend (a decision she took as an affront). With knowledge of real-time information, surely the algorithm had superior insight – or so I believed.

The fundamental problem is that AI is a black box. It produces knowledge, but not always deepening human comprehension. We cannot fully grasp how AI reaches its decisions – even its programmers admit this. Nor can we verify its logic 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 faith. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, side with the machine – that could be our future guiding principle.

Harnessing Without Eroding: The Essential Challenge

AI can be a powerful tool for mankind in scientific pursuit. It can aid in medical research, free us from "bullshit jobs", or handle taxes – duties that demand little thought and offer little satisfaction. All to the good. But Kant and his contemporaries did not advocate for reason over faith just so humans could assemble better furniture or have extra free time. Critical thinking was not merely about efficiency – it was a practice of liberty and human emancipation.

Human thought is often chaotic and error-prone, but it forces us to debate, to doubt, to test ideas – and to acknowledge the limits of our own knowledge. It builds confidence, both individually and collectively. For Kant, the exercise of reason was never only about information; it was about enabling people to become authors of their own destinies, and to resist domination. It was about creating a ethical society grounded in the shared principle of reason and debate, rather than unquestioning acceptance.

With all the undeniable benefits AI brings, the key question remains: how can we leverage its potential of advanced capability without undermining human rationality, the cornerstone of the Enlightenment and of free societies themselves? That is likely one of the defining questions of our century. It is a question we must strive not to delegate to the machine.