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This past summer, I was caught in gridlocked traffic on the sweltering streets of a southern French city. At an intersection, my friend in the front seat suggested a right turn toward a famous spot for fish soup. However, the digital guide on my phone commanded us to go forward. Fatigued and overheated, I followed the app's directive. Minutes later, we were stuck at a roadwork site.

A seemingly trivial incident, perhaps. But one that encapsulates a defining dilemma of our time, where digital tools permeates almost every aspect of existence: who gets our trust to a greater degree – other people and our personal instincts, or the algorithm?

The Enlightenment's Promise and A Contemporary Backslide

The renowned German philosopher Immanuel Kant famously described the Enlightenment as "humanity's emergence from its self-inflicted nonage." This state, he argued, "represents the inability to use one's own understanding without direction from an external source." For ages, that guiding "other" for human thought was frequently the clergyman, the monarch, or the feudal lord – figures purporting to channel divine will. To explain natural events like volcanic eruptions, people sought answers in theology. In shaping the fabric of society, from commerce to matters of the heart, faith served as the main compass.

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

Kant maintained that humans had the capacity for reason. They just didn't have the boldness to use it. With revolutions in the 18th century, a fresh era arrived: reason would replace blind faith, and the human mind, freed from authority, would become the driver of progress and a better world.

Today, 250 years later, one might wonder if we are quietly regressing into a form of intellectual immaturity. An app suggesting a direction is merely the start. AI threatens to become our new "other" – a silent guide that influences our choices and actions. We risk relinquishing the hard-won autonomy to think independently – and this time, not to gods or kings, but to computer programs.

The Rapid Rise and Hidden Risks of AI Dependence

ChatGPT debuted a mere three years ago, and yet a recent study indicated that an overwhelming majority 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 counsel. Data suggests a significant portion of user prompts concern non-work topics. Even more intriguing than our reliance on AI for advice is what occurs when we allow it express for us. Composition is now among the most common uses for tools like ChatGPT, just behind everyday tasks. The late American author Joan Didion once remarked, “I write entirely to discover what I am thinking.” What occurs when we stop composing? Do we lose that path?

Worryingly, emerging research suggests the answer may be affirmative. A study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used electroencephalography to track the mental engagement of essay writers who had could use AI, Google, or no aids. Those who could use AI showed the lowest cognitive engagement and had trouble quoting their own work. Perhaps most troubling was that over time, participants in the AI group became increasingly reliant, pasting large sections of text.

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

Of course, AI's attraction lies in 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 argued that the rise of fascism could be understood by a human tendency to surrender personal freedom in exchange for the reassuring certainty of subordination. AI presents a digital avenue for surrendering the burden 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 lightning pace. Stuck in the car in Marseille, this was, after all, why I chose to trust the app over my friend (a decision she interpreted as an insult). With access to all the data, surely the app had superior insight – or so I thought.

The core issue is that AI is a black box. It produces knowledge, but not always deepening human comprehension. We do not truly know how AI reaches its conclusions – including its creators admit this. Nor can we check its reasoning against clear, objective criteria. So when we heed AI's recommendation, we are not being led by logic. We are returning to the domain of belief. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, side with the machine – that may become our 21st-century guiding principle.

Using Without Losing: The Critical Balance

AI can be a formidable ally for mankind in rational inquiry. It can help inventing drugs, free us from "bullshit jobs", or handle taxes – work that demand little thought and offer little satisfaction. All to the good. But Kant and his contemporaries did not champion enlightenment just so humans could optimize chores or have more leisure. Independent thought was not merely about efficiency – it was a discipline of liberty and human emancipation.

Human thought is often chaotic and error-prone, but it compels us to debate, to doubt, to challenge concepts – and to acknowledge the limits of our own knowledge. It builds 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 lives, and to resist domination. It was about building a ethical society based on the common foundation of rational discourse, rather than unquestioning acceptance.

With all the advantages AI brings, the paramount challenge remains: how can we harness its potential of advanced capability without undermining human reasoning, the bedrock of the Enlightenment and of liberal democracy itself? That may be one of the central dilemmas of our time. It is a question we would do well not to delegate to the machine.