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This recent season, I found myself navigating in congested traffic on the sweltering streets of a southern French city. 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 commanded us to go forward. Weary and in a stifling car, I followed the app's advice. Moments later, we were stuck at a roadwork site.

A seemingly trivial event, perhaps. But one that encapsulates a central dilemma of our era, where digital tools permeates nearly every facet of our lives: whom do we trust to a greater degree – fellow humans and our own intuition, or the machine?

A Call for Intellectual Maturity and A Contemporary Backslide

The influential German philosopher Immanuel Kant famously described the Enlightenment as "humanity's emergence from its self-inflicted immaturity." This immaturity, he argued, "is the inability to use one's personal reason without direction from an external source." For centuries, that directing force for human thought was frequently the priest, the monarch, or the landowner – figures purporting to speak for divine will. To comprehend natural events like changing seasons, people sought answers in theology. 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 had the ability to think rationally. They simply lacked the boldness to employ it. With upheavals in the 18th century, a new dawn arrived: logic would supplant superstition, and the human mind, liberated from authority, would become the engine of advancement and a better world.

Now, 250 years later, one might question if we are quietly regressing into a state of dependency. An app suggesting a driving route is just one example. Artificial intelligence risks becoming our contemporary authority – a unseen overseer that steers our choices and actions. We are in danger of relinquishing the hard-won autonomy to think independently – and this time, not to deities or rulers, but to computer programs.

The Swift Adoption and Subtle Dangers of AI Dependence

ChatGPT debuted only in 2022, and yet a recent study indicated that an overwhelming majority of people had engaged with artificial intelligence in the previous six months. Whether contemplating a breakup or choosing a candidate, individuals are looking to algorithms for counsel. Research 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 let it express for us. Writing is now among the top uses for tools like ChatGPT, just behind practical requests. The late American author Joan Didion famously said, “I write entirely to discover what I am thinking.” What occurs when we cease writing? Do we lose that path?

Worryingly, some evidence hints the outcome may be affirmative. A study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used brain monitoring to observe the mental engagement of participants who had access to AI, traditional search engines, or no aids. Those who could use AI showed the lowest cognitive engagement and had trouble accurately recalling their own work. Maybe most concerning was that over time, individuals in the AI group became increasingly reliant, pasting entire blocks of text.

“Inertia and fear,” Kant wrote, “are the reasons why so many of men … remain in lifelong immaturity.”

Of course, AI's appeal stems from its efficiency. It is fast, reduces effort and – critically – offers a novel way to offload 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 give up personal freedom in for the sake of the reassuring certainty of obedience. AI offers a modern avenue for surrendering the burden of having to decide for oneself.

The Black Box Problem: Trust Without Understanding

AI's greatest allure is its capacity to perform tasks beyond human capability – analyzing vast datasets at lightning pace. Stuck in the car in Marseille, this was, ultimately, why I opted to trust the app over my friend (a choice she took as an affront). With access to real-time information, certainly the algorithm must know best – or so I thought.

The core issue is that AI is a opaque system. It produces answers, but not always deepening human comprehension. We cannot fully grasp how AI reaches its conclusions – including its creators admit this. Nor can we check its reasoning against clear, objective criteria. So when we follow AI's recommendation, we are not being guided by reason. We are returning to the realm of belief. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, trust the machine – that could be our future guiding principle.

Harnessing Without Eroding: The Critical Balance

AI can be a formidable ally for mankind in scientific pursuit. It can aid in medical research, free us from tedious tasks, or handle administrative chores – work that demand little thought and offer little satisfaction. This is beneficial. But Kant and his contemporaries did not champion reason over faith just so humans could optimize chores or have more leisure. Independent thought was not just about productivity – it was a discipline of freedom and human self-determination.

Human thought is often chaotic and error-prone, but it forces us to debate, to doubt, to challenge concepts – and to recognize the boundaries of our own knowledge. It fosters confidence, both individually and as a society. For Kant, the exercise of reason was never only about information; it was about empowering people to become agents of their own destinies, and to resist domination. It was about building a ethical society based on the shared principle of reason and debate, rather than blind belief.

With all the advantages AI brings, the key question is this: how can we leverage its promise of advanced capability without eroding human reasoning, the bedrock of the Enlightenment and of free societies themselves? That is likely one of the central dilemmas of our time. It is a question we must strive not to outsource to the algorithm.