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This recent season, I was caught in gridlocked traffic on the sweltering streets of a southern French city. At an intersection, my friend in the front seat suggested a right turn toward a renowned spot for fish soup. Yet, the navigation app on my phone instructed us to continue straight. Fatigued and overheated, I followed the app's advice. Moments later, we were stuck at a roadwork site.

A seemingly trivial incident, perhaps. But one that encapsulates a defining question of our era, where technology permeates almost every aspect of existence: whom do we trust more – other people and our personal instincts, or the machine?

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-imposed immaturity." This state, he argued, "is the incapacity to use one's personal reason without direction from an external source." For ages, that directing force for society was often the clergyman, the king, or the feudal lord – entities claiming to speak for divine will. To explain phenomena like volcanic eruptions, people sought answers in religion. In shaping the fabric of society, from commerce to matters of the heart, faith acted as the primary guide.

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

Kant argued that humans had the ability to think rationally. They simply lacked the boldness to employ it. With upheavals in the 18th century, a new dawn arrived: logic would supplant blind faith, and the human mind, liberated from dogma, would become the driver of advancement 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 dictating a direction is just one example. Artificial intelligence threatens to become our new "other" – a silent guide that steers our choices and actions. We are in danger of relinquishing the hard-won autonomy to think independently – and now, not to deities or rulers, but to lines of code.

The Rapid Rise and Hidden Risks of AI Dependence

ChatGPT debuted only in 2022, and yet a recent study found that an overwhelming majority of people had used AI in the preceding half-year. Whether contemplating a breakup or selecting a vote, individuals are looking to algorithms for guidance. Research suggests a significant portion of user prompts concern non-work topics. Even more intriguing than our reliance on AI for advice is what happens when we let it express for us. Composition is now one of the top uses for tools like ChatGPT, second only to everyday tasks. The celebrated American author Joan Didion once remarked, “I write purely to find out what I am thinking.” What occurs when we cease writing? Do we cease discovering?

Worryingly, emerging research hints the answer may be affirmative. A study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used electroencephalography to track the mental engagement of essay writers who had could use AI, traditional search engines, or no aids. Those who could use AI displayed the lowest cognitive engagement and had trouble quoting their own work. Maybe most concerning was that after a few months, individuals in the AI group became increasingly reliant, copying entire blocks of text.

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

Certainly, AI's appeal stems from its convenience. It is fast, minimizes work and – critically – offers a new method to offload accountability. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm argued that the appeal of authoritarianism could be partly explained by a human tendency to give up personal freedom in for the sake of the reassuring certainty of subordination. AI presents a modern method of surrendering the burden of having to think and choose.

The Opacity Dilemma: Faith Over Reason

AI's primary draw is its ability to accomplish things beyond our minds – analyzing vast datasets at lightning pace. Sitting in the car in Marseille, this was, ultimately, why I opted to trust the app over my companion (a choice she interpreted as an affront). With knowledge of real-time information, certainly the algorithm must know best – or so I believed.

The core issue is that AI is a opaque system. It produces knowledge, but not always deepening human comprehension. We do not truly know how AI reaches its conclusions – including its creators admit this. Nor can we check its reasoning against transparent standards. So when we heed 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 future guiding principle.

Using Without Losing: The Essential Challenge

AI can be a powerful tool for mankind in rational inquiry. It can help medical research, free us from tedious tasks, or manage taxes – duties that demand little thought and offer little satisfaction. This is beneficial. But Kant and his contemporaries did not champion enlightenment just so humans could assemble better furniture or have more leisure. Critical thinking was not just about efficiency – it was a practice of freedom and human self-determination.

Human thought is inherently messy and error-prone, but it forces us to debate, to question, to test ideas – and to acknowledge the limits of our own knowledge. It builds self-reliance, both personally and as a society. For Kant, the exercise of reason was never solely about information; it was about enabling people to become agents of their own destinies, and to oppose control. It was about creating a ethical society based on the common foundation of rational discourse, rather than blind belief.

With all the advantages AI brings, the key question is this: how can we leverage its potential of advanced capability without eroding human reasoning, the cornerstone of the Enlightenment and of liberal democracy themselves? That may be one of the defining questions of our century. It is a question we must strive not to outsource to the algorithm.