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This past summer, I found myself navigating in congested traffic on the scorching streets of a southern French city. At a crossing, my friend in the passenger seat advised a right turn toward a renowned spot for fish soup. Yet, the digital guide on my phone instructed us to go forward. Fatigued and in a stifling car, I heeded the app's advice. Minutes later, we were stuck at a roadwork site.

A seemingly trivial incident, maybe. But one that captures a defining dilemma of our time, where digital tools touches nearly every facet of existence: whom do we trust to a greater degree – fellow humans and our own intuition, or the algorithm?

A Call for Intellectual Maturity and A Contemporary Backslide

The renowned German philosopher Immanuel Kant once defined the Enlightenment as "man's release from its self-inflicted immaturity." This state, he wrote, "represents the inability to use one's own understanding without direction from an external source." For centuries, that directing force for society was frequently the priest, the king, or the feudal lord – figures purporting to channel divine will. To explain phenomena like changing seasons, people looked for explanations in religion. In organizing the social world, from commerce to matters of the heart, faith acted as the primary guide.

“Sapere aude!” or “Have courage to use your reason!”

Kant argued that humans always possessed the ability to think rationally. They simply lacked the boldness to use it. With upheavals in the 18th century, a new dawn emerged: logic would supplant superstition, and the human mind, freed from dogma, would become the engine of advancement and a better world.

Today, two and a half centuries later, one might wonder if we are slipping back into a state of intellectual immaturity. An app dictating a driving route is just one example. Artificial intelligence threatens to become our new "other" – a unseen guide that steers our decisions and behaviors. We are in danger of ceding the historically earned autonomy to think independently – and now, not to gods or kings, but to computer programs.

The Rapid Rise and Hidden Risks of AI Dependence

ChatGPT debuted a mere three years ago, and already a recent study indicated that an vast number of respondents had engaged with artificial intelligence in the previous six months. Whether deciding on a breakup or choosing a candidate, individuals are looking to algorithms for guidance. Data suggests a significant portion of user queries relate to non-work topics. Even more striking than our reliance on AI for advice is what happens when we let it express for us. Composition is now among the top uses for generative AI, just behind everyday tasks. The celebrated American author Joan Didion once remarked, “I write purely to discover what I am thinking.” What transpires when we cease writing? Do we lose that path?

Worryingly, some evidence hints the answer may be yes. A study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used electroencephalography to observe the mental engagement of essay writers who had access to AI, traditional search engines, or no aids. Those who could use AI showed the lowest brain activity and had trouble accurately recalling their own work. Maybe most troubling was that over time, individuals in the AI group became increasingly reliant, pasting large sections of text.

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

Certainly, AI's attraction stems from its convenience. It saves time, minimizes work and – importantly – offers a new method to offload accountability. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm proposed that the rise of fascism could be understood by a preference to surrender personal freedom in for the sake of the reassuring certainty of obedience. AI offers a modern method of relinquishing the weight of having to think and choose.

The Black Box Problem: Trust Without Understanding

AI's greatest allure is its capacity to accomplish things beyond human capability – sifting through vast datasets at unprecedented speed. Stuck in the car in Marseille, this was, after all, why I opted to believe the app over my companion (a decision she took as an affront). With access to real-time information, certainly the algorithm must know best – or so I believed.

The fundamental problem is that AI is a opaque system. It generates answers, but not always deepening human comprehension. We cannot fully grasp how AI reaches its decisions – even its creators admit this. Nor can we verify its logic against clear, objective criteria. So when we follow AI's recommendation, we are not being led by logic. We are back in the domain of faith. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, trust the machine – that may become our future credo.

Harnessing Without Eroding: The Critical Balance

AI can be a formidable ally for humanity in rational inquiry. It can help inventing drugs, liberate us from tedious tasks, or handle administrative chores – duties that demand little thought and are unfulfilling. All to the good. But Kant and his contemporaries did not champion reason over faith just so humans could assemble better furniture or have extra free time. Critical thinking was not just about efficiency – it was a discipline of liberty and human self-determination.

Human thought is inherently messy and fallible, but it compels us to debate, to doubt, to challenge concepts – and to recognize the limits of our own knowledge. It builds self-reliance, both individually and as a society. For Kant, the use of reason was never only about information; it was about empowering people to become agents of their own lives, and to resist domination. It was about creating a moral community based on the common foundation of rational discourse, rather than unquestioning acceptance.

With all the advantages AI offers, the paramount challenge is this: how can we harness its potential of advanced capability without undermining human rationality, the bedrock of the Enlightenment and of liberal democracy itself? That may be one of the defining questions of our time. It is a question we would do well not to delegate to the machine.