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This past summer, I was caught in congested traffic on the sweltering streets of Marseille. At an intersection, my companion in the passenger seat suggested a right turn toward a renowned spot for fish soup. However, the navigation app on my phone commanded us to continue straight. Weary and overheated, I heeded the app's directive. Moments later, we were stranded at a roadwork site.

A minor incident, perhaps. But one that encapsulates a defining dilemma of our time, where digital tools permeates almost every aspect of existence: whom do we trust to a greater degree – other people and our personal instincts, or the algorithm?

A Call for Intellectual Maturity and A Contemporary Backslide

The renowned German philosopher Immanuel Kant once defined the Enlightenment as "humanity's emergence from its self-inflicted nonage." This state, he argued, "is the incapacity to use one's personal reason without guidance from an external source." For ages, that guiding "other" for society was often the priest, the king, or the feudal lord – figures purporting to speak for divine will. To explain phenomena like volcanic eruptions, people looked for explanations in theology. In shaping the fabric of society, from commerce to love, religious doctrine served as the main compass.

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

Kant maintained that humans always possessed the capacity for reason. They simply lacked the boldness to use it. With upheavals in the 18th century, a new dawn arrived: logic would replace superstition, 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 slipping back into a form of dependency. An app suggesting a driving route is just one example. AI risks becoming our contemporary authority – a unseen overseer that influences our choices and actions. We risk ceding the hard-won courage 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 only in 2022, and already a recent study found that an vast number of respondents had engaged with artificial intelligence in the preceding half-year. Whether deciding on ending a relationship or selecting a vote, individuals are increasingly turning to machines for counsel. Data suggests a significant portion of user prompts concern personal life matters. Even more striking than our use of AI for advice is what occurs when we allow it express for us. Writing is now one of the top uses for tools like ChatGPT, second only to everyday tasks. The late American author Joan Didion famously said, “I write purely to discover what I am thinking.” What transpires when we stop composing? Do we lose that path?

Alarmingly, some evidence suggests the outcome may be affirmative. A study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used electroencephalography to observe the cognitive activity of participants who had access to AI, traditional search engines, or nothing. Those who could rely on AI showed the lowest brain activity and had trouble accurately recalling their own work. Maybe most troubling was that after a few months, participants in the AI group became increasingly reliant, copying entire blocks of text.

“Inertia and fear,” Kant wrote, “are the reasons why so great a proportion of men … stay in perpetual nonage.”

Of course, AI's appeal lies in its convenience. It is fast, minimizes work 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 surrender autonomy in for the sake of the comforting security of subordination. AI presents a digital avenue for surrendering the burden of having to decide for oneself.

The Black Box Problem: Trust Without Understanding

AI's greatest allure is its ability 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 companion (a choice she took as an insult). With access to real-time information, surely the app had superior insight – or so I thought.

The core issue is that AI is a opaque system. It produces knowledge, but not always deepening human comprehension. We cannot fully grasp how AI reaches its conclusions – even its creators acknowledge the opacity. Nor can we verify its logic against transparent standards. So when we heed AI's advice, we are not being guided by reason. We are returning to the realm of belief. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, side with the machine – that could be our 21st-century credo.

Harnessing Without Eroding: The Essential Challenge

AI can be a powerful tool for mankind in scientific pursuit. It can help inventing drugs, liberate us from "bullshit jobs", or manage taxes – work that demand little thought and offer little satisfaction. This is beneficial. But Kant and his peers did not champion enlightenment just so humans could optimize chores or have extra free time. Independent thought was not just about efficiency – it was a discipline of freedom and human emancipation.

Human thought is inherently messy and fallible, but it compels us to debate, to question, to challenge concepts – and to recognize the boundaries of our own knowledge. It fosters self-reliance, both individually and as a society. For Kant, the exercise of reason was never only about acquiring knowledge; it was about empowering people to become agents of their own destinies, and to oppose control. It was about building a moral community 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 leverage its potential of superhuman intelligence without undermining human reasoning, the bedrock of the Enlightenment and of liberal democracy themselves? That is likely one of the central dilemmas of our century. It is a question we must strive not to delegate to the machine.