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This past summer, I found myself navigating in gridlocked traffic on the scorching streets of a southern French city. At an intersection, my companion in the passenger seat advised 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 heeded the app's directive. Minutes later, we were stranded at a construction site.

A minor event, perhaps. But one that encapsulates a central dilemma of our era, where technology permeates nearly every facet of our lives: whom do we trust more – fellow humans and our own intuition, or the algorithm?

A Call for Intellectual Maturity and Our Modern Relapse

The renowned German philosopher Immanuel Kant once defined the Enlightenment as "man's release from its self-imposed nonage." This state, he wrote, "represents the inability to use one's own understanding without direction from another." For centuries, that directing force for society was often the clergyman, the monarch, or the feudal lord – entities purporting to channel God's voice. To explain natural events like volcanic eruptions, people looked for explanations in religion. In organizing the fabric of society, from economics to matters of the heart, faith acted as the main compass.

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

Kant argued that humans always possessed the ability to think rationally. They simply lacked the boldness to use it. With revolutions in the 18th century, a new dawn arrived: logic would replace superstition, and the intellect, freed from dogma, would become the engine of progress and a more ethical world.

Today, two and a half centuries later, one might wonder if we are quietly regressing into a state of intellectual immaturity. An app dictating a driving route is just one example. AI risks becoming our contemporary authority – a silent guide that influences our decisions and actions. We risk relinquishing the historically earned courage to think independently – and this time, not to gods or kings, but to computer programs.

The Swift Adoption and Hidden Risks of AI Dependence

ChatGPT debuted only in 2022, and yet a recent study indicated that an vast number of respondents had used AI in the preceding half-year. Whether deciding on a breakup or choosing a candidate, individuals are looking to machines for guidance. Research suggests a large majority of user prompts relate to non-work topics. Even more striking than our reliance on AI for judgment is what occurs when we let it express for us. Composition is now among the most common uses for tools like ChatGPT, just behind practical requests. The late American author Joan Didion famously said, “I write purely to find out what I am thinking.” What occurs when we stop composing? Do we lose that path?

Alarmingly, emerging research suggests the answer may be affirmative. A study conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used electroencephalography to track the cognitive activity of essay writers who had could use AI, traditional search engines, or nothing. Those who could rely on AI displayed the least brain activity and had difficulty accurately recalling their own work. Perhaps most troubling was that after a few months, participants in the AI group became progressively lazier, copying entire blocks of text.

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

Certainly, AI's appeal stems from its convenience. It is fast, reduces effort and – critically – offers a new method to abdicate accountability. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm argued that the appeal of authoritarianism could be understood by a preference to surrender personal freedom in exchange for the comforting security of subordination. AI presents a modern avenue for surrendering the weight of having to decide for oneself.

The Opacity Dilemma: Trust Without Understanding

AI's primary draw is its ability to accomplish things outside human capability – analyzing oceans of data at unprecedented speed. Sitting in the car in Marseille, this was, ultimately, why I chose to trust the app over my friend (a decision she took as an insult). With knowledge of real-time information, surely the app must know best – or so I thought.

The core issue is that AI is a black box. It produces answers, but without necessarily deepening human understanding. We do not truly know the process behind its conclusions – including its creators acknowledge the opacity. Nor can we verify its reasoning against transparent standards. So when we follow AI's recommendation, 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 credo.

Using Without Losing: The Critical Balance

AI can be a powerful tool for humanity in rational inquiry. It can aid in inventing drugs, liberate us from tedious tasks, or handle administrative chores – 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 optimize chores or have extra free time. Independent thought was not just about efficiency – it was a practice of liberty and human self-determination.

Human thought is inherently messy and fallible, but it compels us to argue, to question, to test ideas – and to recognize the boundaries of our own knowledge. It fosters confidence, both individually and as a society. For Kant, the use of reason was never only about information; it was about empowering people to become agents of their own lives, and to oppose domination. It was about building a ethical society grounded in the common foundation of rational discourse, rather than unquestioning acceptance.

With all the advantages AI offers, the paramount challenge is this: how can we harness its promise of advanced capability without undermining human reasoning, the bedrock of the Enlightenment and of free societies itself? That is likely one of the central dilemmas of our time. It is a question we would do well not to delegate to the algorithm.