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This recent season, I was caught in gridlocked traffic on the scorching streets of Marseille. At a crossing, my friend in the passenger seat advised a right turn toward a famous spot for bouillabaisse. 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 minor incident, maybe. But one that encapsulates a defining dilemma of our era, where technology touches almost every aspect of existence: whom do we trust to a greater degree – other people and our own intuition, or the algorithm?

The Enlightenment's Promise and A Contemporary Backslide

The renowned German philosopher Immanuel Kant famously described the Enlightenment as "man's release from its self-imposed immaturity." This immaturity, he argued, "represents the inability to use one's own understanding without guidance from another." For centuries, that guiding "other" for human thought was often the priest, the king, or the landowner – figures purporting to speak for God's voice. To explain natural events like changing seasons, people looked for explanations in theology. In organizing the social world, from economics to matters of the heart, religious doctrine acted as the primary guide.

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

Kant maintained that humans had the capacity for reason. They simply lacked the boldness to use it. With upheavals in America and France, a fresh era arrived: reason would replace superstition, and the intellect, freed from dogma, would become the engine of progress and a more ethical 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 merely the start. AI risks becoming our new "other" – a silent overseer that influences our choices and actions. We are in danger of relinquishing the hard-won autonomy to think independently – and now, not to deities or rulers, but to computer programs.

The Rapid Rise and Subtle Dangers of AI Dependence

ChatGPT debuted a mere three years ago, and already a recent study found that an vast number of people had engaged with artificial intelligence in the previous six months. Whether deciding on a breakup or selecting a vote, individuals are looking to algorithms for guidance. Data suggests a large majority of user queries relate to non-work topics. Even more striking than our use of AI for judgment is what occurs when we let it speak for us. Writing is now one of the top uses for tools like ChatGPT, second only to everyday tasks. The celebrated American author Joan Didion once remarked, “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 outcome may be affirmative. A study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used electroencephalography to observe the cognitive activity of participants who had access to AI, Google, or no aids. Those who could use AI showed the least brain activity and had difficulty quoting their own work. Maybe most troubling was that after a few months, participants in the AI group grew progressively lazier, copying large sections of text.

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

Of course, AI's appeal stems from its convenience. It saves time, reduces effort and – critically – offers a novel way to abdicate accountability. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm proposed that the appeal of authoritarianism could be partly explained by a preference to give up personal freedom in exchange for the reassuring certainty of subordination. AI presents a modern method of relinquishing the burden of having to think and choose.

The Opacity Dilemma: Trust Without Understanding

AI's primary draw is its ability to accomplish things beyond human capability – sifting through vast datasets at lightning pace. Sitting in the car in Marseille, this was, after all, why I opted to trust the app over my friend (a choice she interpreted as an affront). With knowledge of real-time information, certainly the app must know best – or so I believed.

The fundamental problem is that AI operates as a opaque system. It generates answers, but without necessarily fostering human understanding. We cannot fully grasp how AI reaches its decisions – including its creators admit this. Nor can we verify its reasoning against transparent standards. 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 21st-century credo.

Using Without Losing: The Critical Balance

AI can be a powerful tool for mankind in scientific pursuit. It can help inventing drugs, liberate us from tedious tasks, or handle administrative chores – duties that are repetitive and offer little satisfaction. This is beneficial. But Kant and his peers did not champion enlightenment just so humans could optimize chores or have extra free time. Critical thinking was not merely about efficiency – it was a discipline of freedom and human emancipation.

Human thought is inherently messy and fallible, but it compels us to argue, to question, to challenge concepts – and to recognize the boundaries of our own knowledge. It builds self-reliance, both individually and as a society. For Kant, the use of reason was never only about acquiring knowledge; it was about enabling people to become agents of their own destinies, and to oppose domination. It was about building a ethical society grounded in the common foundation of rational discourse, rather than blind belief.

With all the undeniable benefits AI offers, the key question is this: how can we leverage its promise of advanced capability without undermining human rationality, the bedrock of the Enlightenment and of free societies itself? That is likely one of the defining questions of our century. It is a question we must strive not to delegate to the algorithm.