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This recent season, I found myself navigating in gridlocked traffic on the scorching streets of a southern French city. At an intersection, my friend in the passenger seat advised a right turn toward a renowned spot for fish soup. Yet, the navigation app on my phone commanded us to continue straight. Weary and overheated, I heeded the algorithm's advice. Moments later, we were stranded at a roadwork site.

A seemingly trivial event, maybe. But one that captures a central dilemma of our time, where digital tools touches almost every aspect of our lives: whom do we trust more – other people 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-imposed immaturity." This immaturity, he argued, "represents the incapacity to use one's personal reason without guidance from an external source." For ages, that directing force for human thought was frequently the clergyman, the monarch, or the landowner – figures claiming to channel divine will. To explain phenomena like changing seasons, people sought answers in theology. In organizing the fabric of society, from economics to love, faith served as the primary guide.

“Sapere aude!” or “Have courage to use your own understanding!”

Kant argued that humans always possessed the capacity for reason. They simply lacked the boldness to employ it. With upheavals in America and France, a new dawn arrived: logic would supplant superstition, and the intellect, freed from dogma, would become the driver of progress and a more ethical world.

Today, two and a half centuries later, one might wonder if we are slipping back into a state of intellectual immaturity. An app suggesting a driving route is just one example. AI risks becoming our new "other" – a silent overseer that influences our choices and actions. We are in danger of relinquishing the hard-won courage to think independently – and this time, not to gods or kings, but to lines of code.

The Rapid Rise and Hidden Risks of AI Dependence

ChatGPT debuted a mere three years ago, and yet a recent study indicated that an vast number of respondents had used AI in the previous six months. Whether contemplating ending a relationship or selecting a vote, individuals are looking to algorithms for counsel. Data suggests a large majority of user prompts concern non-work topics. Even more striking than our reliance on AI for judgment is what occurs when we let it speak for us. Composition is now one of the top uses for generative AI, just behind everyday tasks. The celebrated American author Joan Didion famously said, “I write entirely to find out what I am thinking.” What transpires when we cease writing? Do we cease discovering?

Worryingly, emerging research hints the answer may be affirmative. A study conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used electroencephalography to observe the cognitive activity of essay writers who had access to AI, traditional search engines, or no aids. Those who could use AI showed the least cognitive engagement and had difficulty accurately recalling their own work. Perhaps most concerning was that after a few months, individuals in the AI group grew progressively lazier, 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 appeal lies in its convenience. 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 proposed that the rise of fascism could be partly explained by a human tendency to surrender autonomy in exchange for the comforting security of subordination. AI presents a modern avenue for relinquishing the burden of having to decide for oneself.

The Black Box Problem: Trust Without Understanding

AI's greatest allure is its ability to accomplish things outside human capability – analyzing oceans of data at lightning pace. Stuck in the car in Marseille, this was, after all, why I opted to believe the app over my friend (a choice she interpreted as an affront). With knowledge of all the data, surely the app had superior insight – or so I thought.

The fundamental problem is that AI operates as a opaque system. It generates answers, but not always deepening human comprehension. We cannot fully grasp how AI reaches its conclusions – including its creators acknowledge the opacity. Nor can we verify its reasoning 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, trust the machine – that could be our 21st-century credo.

Using Without Losing: The Essential Challenge

AI can be a formidable ally for humanity in scientific pursuit. It can help inventing drugs, liberate us from tedious tasks, or handle taxes – duties that demand little thought and offer little satisfaction. All to the good. But Kant and his contemporaries did not advocate for enlightenment just so humans could assemble better furniture or have more leisure. Critical thinking was not just about efficiency – it was a discipline of freedom and human self-determination.

Human thought is inherently messy and fallible, but it forces us to argue, to doubt, to test ideas – and to recognize the boundaries of our own knowledge. It fosters confidence, both personally and collectively. For Kant, the use of reason was never solely about acquiring knowledge; it was about empowering people to become authors of their own destinies, and to oppose domination. It was about building a moral community based on the common foundation of rational discourse, rather than unquestioning acceptance.

With all the advantages AI offers, the key question is this: how can we harness its potential of advanced capability without undermining human reasoning, the cornerstone of the Enlightenment and of liberal democracy itself? That is likely one of the defining questions of our century. It is a question we would do well not to outsource to the algorithm.