🔗 Share this article

This recent season, I was caught in congested traffic on the scorching streets of a southern French city. At a crossing, my friend in the front seat suggested a right turn toward a famous spot for fish soup. Yet, the digital guide on my phone instructed us to go forward. Fatigued and in a stifling car, I followed the app's directive. Minutes later, we were stuck at a roadwork site.

A seemingly trivial event, maybe. But one that captures a defining question of our time, where digital tools touches almost every aspect of existence: whom do we trust to a greater degree – other people 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 immaturity." This state, he wrote, "represents the inability to use one's personal reason without direction from an external source." For ages, that directing force for society was frequently the priest, the monarch, or the feudal lord – entities claiming to channel God's voice. To comprehend natural events like volcanic eruptions, people looked for explanations in theology. In organizing the social world, from economics to matters of the heart, religious doctrine acted as the main compass.

“Sapere aude!” or “Dare to use your own understanding!”

Kant maintained that humans always possessed the capacity for reason. They just didn't have the boldness to use it. With revolutions in the 18th century, a new dawn arrived: reason would supplant blind faith, and the intellect, liberated from authority, would become the driver of progress and a better world.

Today, two and a half centuries later, one might question if we are quietly regressing into a form of dependency. An app dictating a direction is merely the start. Artificial intelligence risks becoming our new "other" – a unseen guide that steers our choices and actions. We risk relinquishing the hard-won courage to think independently – and this time, not to gods or kings, but to computer programs.

The Swift Adoption and Hidden Risks of Algorithmic Reliance

ChatGPT debuted only in 2022, and already a recent study found that an vast number of respondents had engaged with artificial intelligence in the previous six months. Whether contemplating ending a relationship or choosing a candidate, individuals are looking to algorithms for counsel. Research suggests a large majority of user queries concern personal life matters. Even more intriguing than our use of AI for judgment is what occurs when we allow 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 famously said, “I write entirely to find out what I am thinking.” What transpires when we stop composing? Do we cease discovering?

Alarmingly, emerging research suggests the outcome may be affirmative. 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 displayed the least brain activity and had trouble quoting their own work. Perhaps most troubling was that after a few months, individuals in the AI group became increasingly reliant, copying entire blocks of text.

“Laziness and cowardice,” 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 – importantly – offers a novel way to offload 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 autonomy in exchange for the comforting security of obedience. AI offers a digital avenue for surrendering the burden of having to think and choose.

The Black Box Problem: Trust Without Understanding

AI's primary draw is its capacity to accomplish things beyond human capability – sifting through oceans of data at unprecedented speed. Stuck in the car in Marseille, this was, after all, why I opted to believe the app over my companion (a choice she took as an affront). With knowledge of all the data, surely the app must know best – or so I thought.

The fundamental problem is that AI operates as a opaque system. It generates knowledge, but not always fostering human comprehension. We cannot fully grasp the process behind its conclusions – even its creators admit this. Nor can we check its logic against transparent standards. So when we follow AI's advice, we are not being led by logic. We are returning to the domain of belief. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, trust the machine – that could be our future guiding principle.

Using Without Losing: The Essential Challenge

AI can be a powerful tool for humanity in scientific pursuit. It can aid in inventing drugs, free us from tedious tasks, or handle taxes – work that demand little thought and are unfulfilling. All to the good. But Kant and his peers did not advocate for enlightenment just so humans could optimize chores or have extra free time. Independent thought was not merely about efficiency – it was a practice of liberty and human emancipation.

Human thought is often chaotic and error-prone, but it compels us to argue, to doubt, to test ideas – and to recognize the limits of our own understanding. It fosters self-reliance, both personally and as a society. For Kant, the exercise of reason was never only about acquiring knowledge; it was about enabling people to become agents of their own destinies, and to resist domination. It was about creating a moral community grounded in the shared principle of reason and debate, rather than unquestioning acceptance.

With all the undeniable benefits AI offers, the key question is this: how can we harness its promise of superhuman intelligence 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 would do well not to outsource to the machine.