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This recent season, I was caught in congested traffic on the sweltering streets of a southern French city. At a crossing, my companion in the front seat advised a right turn toward a renowned spot for fish soup. However, the navigation app on my phone commanded us to go forward. Weary and overheated, I followed the algorithm's directive. Moments later, we were stranded at a construction site.

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

A Call for Intellectual Maturity and A Contemporary Backslide

The renowned German philosopher Immanuel Kant once defined the Enlightenment as "man's release from its self-imposed immaturity." This immaturity, he argued, "represents the incapacity to use one's own understanding without guidance from an external source." For ages, that directing force for human thought was often the clergyman, the monarch, or the feudal lord – entities purporting to channel God's voice. To explain natural events like changing seasons, people looked for explanations in theology. In shaping the social world, from commerce to love, faith served as the primary guide.

“Sapere aude!” or “Dare to use your reason!”

Kant maintained that humans always possessed the ability to think rationally. They just didn't have the boldness to employ it. With upheavals in America and France, a new dawn emerged: logic would supplant superstition, and the human mind, liberated from authority, would become the driver of advancement and a more ethical world.

Now, 250 years later, one might question if we are slipping back into a form of intellectual immaturity. An app suggesting a direction is merely the start. AI threatens to become our contemporary authority – a unseen guide that steers our decisions and actions. We risk ceding the hard-won courage to think independently – and now, not to deities or rulers, but to lines of code.

The Rapid Rise and Hidden Risks of Algorithmic Reliance

ChatGPT was launched only in 2022, and yet a global survey indicated that an overwhelming majority of respondents had engaged with artificial intelligence in the preceding half-year. Whether deciding on ending a relationship or selecting a vote, individuals are increasingly turning to machines for counsel. Data suggests a large majority of user queries relate to personal life matters. Even more striking than our use of AI for judgment is what happens when we allow it speak for us. Composition is now one of the most common uses for tools like ChatGPT, second only to everyday tasks. The celebrated American author Joan Didion once remarked, “I write entirely to find out what I am thinking.” What occurs when we stop composing? Do we lose that path?

Worryingly, some evidence hints the outcome may be affirmative. A study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used electroencephalography to observe the mental engagement of essay writers who had access to AI, Google, or nothing. Those who could use AI showed the lowest cognitive engagement and had trouble accurately recalling their own work. Perhaps most concerning was that after a few months, participants in the AI group became increasingly reliant, pasting large sections of text.

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

Certainly, AI's attraction stems from its convenience. It is fast, reduces effort and – importantly – offers a new method 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 surrender autonomy in exchange for the comforting security of obedience. AI presents a modern method of relinquishing the weight of having to decide for oneself.

The Black Box Problem: Trust Without Understanding

AI's primary draw is its capacity to accomplish things beyond our minds – analyzing vast datasets at unprecedented speed. Stuck in the car in Marseille, this was, after all, why I opted to trust the app over my companion (a decision she took as an affront). With access to real-time information, certainly the algorithm had superior insight – or so I thought.

The core issue is that AI operates as a black box. It generates knowledge, but not always fostering human understanding. We do not truly know how AI reaches its decisions – even its creators acknowledge the opacity. Nor can we verify its logic against transparent standards. So when we heed AI's recommendation, we are not being guided by reason. We are returning to the domain of faith. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, trust the machine – that could be our 21st-century credo.

Harnessing Without Eroding: The Critical Balance

AI can be a powerful tool for mankind in rational inquiry. It can aid in medical research, free us from "bullshit jobs", or handle taxes – work that demand little thought and are unfulfilling. This is beneficial. But Kant and his peers did not advocate for reason over faith just so humans could assemble better furniture or have more leisure. Critical thinking was not just about productivity – it was a practice of liberty and human self-determination.

Human thought is often chaotic and fallible, but it compels us to argue, to doubt, to test ideas – and to recognize the boundaries of our own knowledge. It builds confidence, both personally and collectively. For Kant, the use of reason was never only about information; it was about empowering people to become authors of their own destinies, and to oppose control. It was about creating a moral community based on the shared principle of reason and debate, rather than unquestioning acceptance.

With all the undeniable benefits AI brings, the key question is this: how can we harness its potential of superhuman intelligence without undermining human rationality, the bedrock of the Enlightenment and of free societies themselves? That may be one of the defining questions of our century. It is a question we must strive not to delegate to the machine.