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This past summer, I found myself navigating in gridlocked traffic on the sweltering streets of Marseille. At an intersection, my friend in the front seat advised a right turn toward a famous spot for fish soup. However, the navigation app on my phone commanded us to continue straight. Weary and in a stifling car, I followed the algorithm's directive. Minutes later, we were stuck at a roadwork site.

A seemingly trivial incident, perhaps. But one that captures a defining question of our time, where digital tools permeates nearly every facet of our lives: whom do we trust to a greater degree – fellow humans and our personal instincts, or the algorithm?

The Enlightenment's Promise and Our Modern Relapse

The renowned German philosopher Immanuel Kant once defined the Enlightenment as "man's release from its self-imposed nonage." This state, he argued, "is the inability to use one's own understanding without direction from an external source." For ages, that guiding "other" for human thought was often the priest, the king, or the feudal lord – figures purporting to channel divine will. To explain phenomena like volcanic eruptions, people looked for explanations in theology. In shaping the fabric of society, from economics to love, faith served as the main compass.

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

Kant argued that humans always possessed the capacity for reason. They simply lacked the boldness to use it. With revolutions in the 18th century, a new dawn arrived: logic would supplant blind faith, and the intellect, liberated from dogma, would become the driver of advancement 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 suggesting a driving route is just one example. AI threatens to become our new "other" – a silent overseer that influences our decisions and actions. We are in danger of ceding the hard-won autonomy to think independently – and this time, not to deities or rulers, but to computer programs.

The Swift Adoption and Subtle Dangers of Algorithmic Reliance

ChatGPT was launched only in 2022, and already a global survey found that an overwhelming majority of respondents had used AI in the preceding half-year. Whether contemplating a breakup or choosing a candidate, individuals are looking to algorithms for guidance. Data suggests a large majority of user prompts relate to personal life matters. Even more striking than our use of AI for judgment is what occurs when we allow it speak for us. Composition is now among the top uses for generative AI, just behind practical requests. The late American author Joan Didion famously said, “I write purely to discover what I am thinking.” What occurs when we cease writing? Do we lose that path?

Worryingly, emerging research hints the answer may be affirmative. A study conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used brain monitoring to observe the cognitive activity of participants who had access to AI, traditional search engines, or nothing. Those who could use AI showed the least cognitive engagement and had difficulty accurately recalling their own work. Perhaps most concerning was that over time, participants in the AI group grew progressively lazier, pasting entire blocks of text.

“Inertia and fear,” Kant wrote, “are the reasons why so many of men … remain in perpetual nonage.”

Certainly, AI's attraction lies in its convenience. It is fast, reduces effort and – critically – offers a new method to offload accountability. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm argued that the rise of fascism could be partly explained by a preference to give up autonomy in exchange for the reassuring certainty of subordination. AI offers a digital avenue for relinquishing the weight of having to think and choose.

The Black Box Problem: Faith Over Reason

AI's primary draw is its capacity to perform tasks beyond human capability – sifting through vast datasets at unprecedented speed. Sitting in the car in Marseille, this was, ultimately, why I chose to trust the app over my companion (a decision she took as an affront). With knowledge of all the data, certainly the algorithm must know best – or so I believed.

The core issue is that AI operates as a black box. It generates knowledge, but not always fostering human understanding. We do not truly know the process behind its decisions – including its creators admit this. Nor can we check its reasoning against transparent standards. So when we follow AI's advice, we are not being led by logic. We are returning to the domain of faith. 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 scientific pursuit. It can help inventing drugs, free us from tedious tasks, or manage taxes – work that are repetitive and offer little satisfaction. This is beneficial. But Kant and his contemporaries did not advocate for reason over faith just so humans could optimize chores or have more leisure. Critical thinking 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 recognize the boundaries of our own understanding. It fosters self-reliance, both personally and collectively. For Kant, the exercise of reason was never only about acquiring knowledge; it was about empowering people to become authors of their own destinies, and to oppose control. It was about creating a ethical society grounded in the common foundation of rational discourse, rather than blind belief.

With all the advantages AI offers, the key question remains: how can we harness its promise of superhuman intelligence without eroding human rationality, the cornerstone of the Enlightenment and of liberal democracy itself? That may be one of the defining questions of our time. It is a question we must strive not to delegate to the algorithm.