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This recent season, I found myself navigating in gridlocked traffic on the scorching streets of Marseille. At a crossing, my friend in the passenger seat suggested a right turn toward a famous spot for fish soup. However, the navigation app on my phone instructed us to continue straight. Weary and overheated, I heeded the app's directive. Moments later, we were stranded at a roadwork site.

A seemingly trivial incident, perhaps. But one that captures a defining dilemma of our era, where technology permeates almost every aspect of existence: whom do we trust more – other people and our personal instincts, or the algorithm?

The Enlightenment's Promise and A Contemporary Backslide

The renowned German philosopher Immanuel Kant once defined the Enlightenment as "humanity's emergence from its self-imposed immaturity." This immaturity, he wrote, "represents the inability to use one's personal reason without direction from another." For ages, that guiding "other" for human thought was frequently the priest, the king, or the feudal lord – entities claiming to speak for divine will. To explain natural events like volcanic eruptions, people sought answers in religion. In shaping the social world, from commerce to matters of the heart, faith served as the main compass.

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

Kant argued that humans had the capacity for reason. They simply lacked the boldness to use it. With revolutions in the 18th century, a fresh era emerged: reason would supplant superstition, and the intellect, freed from authority, 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 intellectual immaturity. An app suggesting a direction is just one example. Artificial intelligence threatens to become our new "other" – a unseen overseer that steers our decisions and behaviors. We risk relinquishing the historically earned autonomy to think independently – and now, not to gods or kings, but to computer programs.

The Rapid Rise and Subtle Dangers of Algorithmic Reliance

ChatGPT debuted only in 2022, and already a recent study indicated that an overwhelming majority of people had used AI in the preceding half-year. Whether contemplating ending a relationship or choosing a candidate, individuals are looking to machines for guidance. Research suggests a large majority of user queries concern non-work topics. Even more intriguing than our use of AI for advice is what happens when we allow it express for us. Writing is now among the top uses for generative AI, second only to everyday tasks. The celebrated American author Joan Didion famously said, “I write entirely to find out what I am thinking.” What occurs 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 track the cognitive activity of essay writers who had access to AI, traditional search engines, or nothing. Those who could use AI showed the lowest brain activity and had trouble quoting their own work. Maybe most troubling was that after a few months, individuals in the AI group grew increasingly reliant, pasting entire blocks of text.

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

Certainly, AI's attraction lies in its efficiency. It saves time, minimizes work and – critically – offers a novel way to abdicate responsibility. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm argued that the rise of fascism could be understood by a human tendency to give up personal freedom in exchange for the comforting security of subordination. AI presents a modern avenue for surrendering the burden of having to decide for oneself.

The Opacity Dilemma: Trust Without Understanding

AI's primary draw is its capacity to perform tasks beyond human capability – sifting through oceans of data at unprecedented speed. Sitting in the car in Marseille, this was, ultimately, why I chose to believe the machine over my companion (a decision she took as an insult). With knowledge of real-time information, surely the algorithm had superior insight – or so I thought.

The core issue is that AI operates as a black box. It generates answers, but without necessarily deepening human understanding. We cannot fully grasp how AI reaches its decisions – including its programmers acknowledge the opacity. Nor can we check its logic against clear, objective criteria. So when we heed AI's advice, we are not being guided by reason. We are back in the domain of belief. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, side with the machine – that may become our future credo.

Harnessing Without Eroding: The Essential Challenge

AI can be a formidable ally for mankind in rational inquiry. It can help inventing drugs, free us from "bullshit jobs", or handle taxes – work that are repetitive and offer little satisfaction. All to the good. But Kant and his contemporaries did not champion reason over faith just so humans could assemble better furniture or have more leisure. Independent thought was not just about productivity – it was a practice of liberty and human self-determination.

Human thought is inherently messy and error-prone, but it forces us to debate, to doubt, to test ideas – and to acknowledge the boundaries of our own knowledge. It fosters confidence, both personally and collectively. For Kant, the use of reason was never solely about information; it was about empowering people to become authors of their own destinies, and to resist domination. It was about building a moral community grounded in the common foundation of reason and debate, rather than blind belief.

With all the advantages AI offers, the paramount challenge remains: how can we harness its promise of superhuman intelligence without undermining human reasoning, the cornerstone of the Enlightenment and of free societies themselves? That may be one of the central dilemmas of our time. It is a question we must strive not to delegate to the algorithm.