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This recent season, I found myself navigating in congested traffic on the sweltering streets of Marseille. At a crossing, my friend in the passenger seat advised a right turn toward a renowned spot for bouillabaisse. However, the navigation app on my phone instructed us to continue straight. Fatigued and in a stifling car, I followed the algorithm's advice. Moments later, we were stranded at a construction site.

A minor incident, maybe. But one that captures a defining dilemma of our time, where technology permeates nearly every facet of our lives: who gets our 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 immaturity." This state, he argued, "represents the incapacity to use one's personal reason without guidance from another." For ages, that guiding "other" for society was frequently the clergyman, the king, or the landowner – figures claiming to speak for divine will. To comprehend natural events like volcanic eruptions, people looked for explanations in religion. In shaping the fabric of society, from economics to matters of the heart, faith served as the main compass.

“Sapere aude!” or “Have courage to use your own understanding!”

Kant maintained that humans had the ability to think rationally. They simply lacked the boldness to employ it. With upheavals in the 18th century, a fresh era emerged: logic would supplant blind faith, and the intellect, freed from authority, would become the driver of progress and a more ethical world.

Now, two and a half centuries later, one might wonder if we are quietly regressing into a form of dependency. An app suggesting a driving route is merely the start. AI threatens to become our new "other" – a unseen guide that steers our choices and actions. We risk relinquishing the hard-won autonomy to reason for ourselves – and now, not to deities or rulers, but to computer programs.

The Rapid Rise and Hidden Risks of AI Dependence

ChatGPT debuted only in 2022, and yet a recent study indicated that an overwhelming majority of people had used AI in the preceding half-year. Whether contemplating a breakup or choosing a candidate, individuals are looking to algorithms for counsel. Data suggests a large majority of user queries relate to non-work topics. Even more striking than our use of AI for advice is what occurs when we let it express for us. Writing is now among the top uses for generative AI, just behind everyday tasks. The late American author Joan Didion famously said, “I write purely to find out what I am thinking.” What occurs when we cease writing? Do we lose that path?

Alarmingly, some evidence hints the outcome may be affirmative. A study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used brain monitoring to track the mental engagement of essay writers who had access to AI, Google, or no aids. Those who could use AI showed the lowest brain activity and had difficulty accurately recalling their own work. Maybe most troubling was that over time, participants in the AI group grew increasingly reliant, copying entire blocks of text.

“Laziness and cowardice,” 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 – importantly – offers a novel way to abdicate accountability. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm proposed that the rise of fascism could be understood by a human tendency to give up autonomy in for the sake of the comforting security of obedience. AI presents a modern method of relinquishing the weight of having to think and choose.

The Black Box Problem: Faith Over Reason

AI's greatest allure is its capacity to perform tasks outside human capability – sifting through oceans of data at unprecedented speed. Stuck in the car in Marseille, this was, after all, why I opted to trust the app over my friend (a decision she interpreted as an affront). With access to all the data, surely the app had superior insight – or so I believed.

The core issue is that AI operates as a opaque system. It produces answers, 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 transparent standards. So when we follow AI's advice, we are not being guided by reason. We are returning to the domain of belief. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, trust the machine – that could be our future guiding principle.

Using Without Losing: The Critical Balance

AI can be a formidable ally for humanity in rational inquiry. It can aid in medical research, free us from "bullshit jobs", or manage administrative chores – duties that demand little thought and offer little satisfaction. All to the good. But Kant and his peers did not advocate for enlightenment just so humans could optimize chores or have extra free time. Independent thought was not just about productivity – it was a discipline of liberty and human self-determination.

Human thought is inherently messy and fallible, but it forces us to argue, to question, to challenge concepts – and to acknowledge the boundaries of our own understanding. It builds self-reliance, both personally and collectively. For Kant, the use of reason was never solely about information; it was about enabling people to become authors of their own lives, and to oppose control. It was about creating a moral community grounded in the common foundation of rational discourse, rather than blind belief.

With all the undeniable benefits AI brings, the key question is this: how can we leverage its promise 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 algorithm.