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This past summer, I was caught in gridlocked traffic on the sweltering streets of Marseille. At a crossing, my friend in the passenger seat advised a right turn toward a famous spot for fish soup. However, the digital guide on my phone commanded us to go forward. Fatigued and in a stifling car, I followed the algorithm's directive. Minutes later, we were stranded at a roadwork site.

A seemingly trivial incident, maybe. But one that captures a defining dilemma of our time, where technology touches nearly every facet of our lives: whom do we trust to a greater degree – other people and our personal instincts, or the machine?

A Call for Intellectual Maturity and Our Modern Relapse

The influential German philosopher Immanuel Kant once defined the Enlightenment as "man's release from its self-inflicted immaturity." This immaturity, he argued, "represents the incapacity to use one's own understanding without guidance from an external source." For centuries, that guiding "other" for society was often the priest, the king, or the landowner – figures claiming to channel divine will. To explain natural events like volcanic eruptions, people sought answers in theology. In shaping the social world, from commerce to love, faith acted as the main compass.

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

Kant argued that humans had the ability to think rationally. They simply lacked the confidence to employ it. With upheavals in America and France, a fresh era emerged: logic would replace blind faith, and the human mind, liberated from dogma, would become the engine of progress and a more ethical world.

Now, two and a half centuries later, one might question if we are slipping back into a form of dependency. An app suggesting a direction is merely the start. Artificial intelligence risks becoming our contemporary authority – a unseen overseer that influences our choices and actions. We are in danger of relinquishing the historically earned courage to reason for ourselves – and now, not to deities or rulers, but to computer programs.

The Rapid Rise and Subtle Dangers of AI Dependence

ChatGPT debuted a mere three years ago, and yet a global survey indicated that an overwhelming majority of respondents had engaged with artificial intelligence in the preceding half-year. Whether deciding on ending a relationship or selecting a vote, individuals are looking to algorithms for guidance. Research suggests a significant portion of user queries concern non-work topics. Even more striking than our use of AI for judgment is what happens when we let it express for us. Composition is now one of the top uses for tools like ChatGPT, just behind practical requests. The late American author Joan Didion once remarked, “I write entirely to find out what I am thinking.” What occurs when we stop composing? Do we cease discovering?

Worryingly, emerging research hints the outcome may be yes. A study conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used brain monitoring to observe the cognitive activity of essay writers who had access to AI, Google, or nothing. Those who could use AI showed the lowest cognitive engagement and had difficulty accurately recalling their own work. Perhaps most troubling was that over time, individuals in the AI group grew increasingly reliant, copying entire blocks of text.

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

Certainly, AI's attraction stems from its efficiency. It is fast, reduces effort and – importantly – offers a novel way to abdicate responsibility. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm argued that the appeal of authoritarianism could be understood by a human tendency to surrender autonomy in for the sake of the comforting security of subordination. AI offers a modern method of relinquishing the weight of having to think and choose.

The Opacity Dilemma: Trust Without Understanding

AI's greatest allure is its capacity to perform tasks outside our minds – sifting through vast datasets at lightning pace. Stuck in the car in Marseille, this was, after all, why I chose to believe the app over my friend (a choice she took as an affront). With access to all the data, certainly the algorithm must know best – or so I thought.

The fundamental problem is that AI operates as a opaque system. It generates answers, but not always fostering human understanding. We do not truly know the process behind its decisions – even its programmers acknowledge the opacity. Nor can we verify its reasoning against transparent standards. So when we heed AI's advice, we are not being led by logic. We are back in the realm of belief. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, trust the machine – that may become our 21st-century guiding principle.

Using Without Losing: The Critical Balance

AI can be a powerful tool for humanity in scientific pursuit. It can help inventing drugs, liberate us from tedious tasks, or handle administrative chores – work that demand little thought and are unfulfilling. 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. Independent thought was not just about productivity – it was a practice of liberty and human emancipation.

Human thought is often chaotic and error-prone, but it compels us to argue, to question, to test ideas – and to acknowledge the boundaries of our own knowledge. It builds confidence, both individually and collectively. For Kant, the use of reason was never only about information; it was about empowering people to become agents of their own destinies, and to resist control. It was about creating a ethical society based on the shared principle of rational discourse, rather than unquestioning acceptance.

With all the advantages AI offers, the key question remains: how can we harness its promise of advanced capability without undermining human rationality, the bedrock of the Enlightenment and of liberal democracy themselves? That may be one of the central dilemmas of our century. It is a question we must strive not to outsource to the algorithm.