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This past summer, I was caught in gridlocked traffic on the scorching streets of Marseille. At a crossing, my companion in the passenger seat advised a right turn toward a renowned spot for fish soup. However, the digital guide on my phone instructed us to go forward. Fatigued and overheated, I followed the app's advice. Minutes later, we were stranded at a construction site.

A seemingly trivial incident, perhaps. But one that captures a defining dilemma of our time, where technology permeates almost every aspect of existence: whom do we trust to a greater degree – fellow humans and our personal instincts, or the algorithm?

A Call for Intellectual Maturity and Our Modern Relapse

The influential German philosopher Immanuel Kant famously described the Enlightenment as "man's release from its self-inflicted nonage." This state, he wrote, "represents the incapacity to use one's personal reason without guidance from an external source." For centuries, that guiding "other" for human thought was often the clergyman, the monarch, or the landowner – entities purporting to channel divine will. To comprehend natural events like changing seasons, people looked for explanations in theology. In organizing the fabric of society, from economics to love, religious doctrine acted as the primary guide.

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

Kant argued that humans always possessed the ability to think rationally. They just didn't have the boldness to use it. With revolutions in the 18th century, a new dawn emerged: logic would replace blind faith, and the human mind, freed from dogma, would become the driver of advancement and a more ethical world.

Today, 250 years later, one might question if we are slipping back into a form of dependency. An app dictating a direction is merely the start. AI risks becoming our contemporary authority – a silent guide that steers our decisions and actions. We are in danger of ceding the historically earned courage to think independently – and this time, not to gods or kings, but to lines of code.

The Swift Adoption and Hidden Risks of AI Dependence

ChatGPT was launched only in 2022, and yet a global survey found that an vast number of people had used AI in the preceding half-year. Whether contemplating a breakup or choosing a candidate, individuals are looking to machines for guidance. Data suggests a large majority of user prompts relate to non-work topics. Even more striking than our reliance on AI for advice is what occurs when we allow it speak for us. Writing is now one of the top uses for tools like ChatGPT, second only to practical requests. The celebrated American author Joan Didion once remarked, “I write entirely to discover what I am thinking.” What transpires when we stop composing? Do we cease discovering?

Worryingly, some evidence hints the answer may be yes. A study conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used brain monitoring to track the cognitive activity of essay writers who had access to AI, Google, or nothing. Those who could use AI displayed the least 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 progressively lazier, pasting entire blocks of text.

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

Of course, AI's appeal lies in its convenience. It saves time, reduces effort and – importantly – offers a novel way to offload responsibility. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm proposed that the appeal of authoritarianism could be understood by a preference to give up autonomy in exchange for the reassuring certainty of obedience. AI offers a digital avenue for relinquishing the burden of having to think and choose.

The Black Box Problem: Trust Without Understanding

AI's greatest allure is its ability to accomplish things beyond our minds – analyzing oceans of data at lightning pace. Stuck in the car in Marseille, this was, after all, why I opted to trust the machine over my companion (a choice she interpreted as an insult). With knowledge of real-time information, certainly the algorithm had superior insight – or so I believed.

The core issue is that AI is a opaque system. It generates answers, but not always deepening human understanding. We do not truly know the process behind its conclusions – even its creators acknowledge the opacity. Nor can we check its reasoning 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 belief. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, side with the machine – that could be our 21st-century credo.

Using Without Losing: The Critical Balance

AI can be a formidable ally for humanity in scientific pursuit. It can help medical research, free us from "bullshit jobs", or manage taxes – work 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 optimize chores or have extra free time. Critical thinking was not just about efficiency – it was a practice of liberty and human emancipation.

Human thought is often chaotic and fallible, but it compels us to debate, to doubt, to test ideas – and to recognize the boundaries of our own understanding. It fosters 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 authors of their own destinies, and to oppose control. It was about creating a moral community grounded in the common foundation of rational discourse, rather than blind belief.

With all the advantages AI offers, the paramount challenge remains: how can we harness its promise of advanced capability without undermining human rationality, the cornerstone of the Enlightenment and of liberal democracy themselves? That may be one of the central dilemmas of our time. It is a question we would do well not to outsource to the machine.