🔗 Share this article

This recent season, I was caught in gridlocked traffic on the scorching streets of Marseille. At a crossing, my friend in the passenger seat suggested a right turn toward a renowned spot for bouillabaisse. Yet, the digital guide on my phone instructed us to continue straight. Fatigued and in a stifling car, I heeded the algorithm's directive. Moments later, we were stranded at a roadwork site.

A minor event, maybe. But one that encapsulates a central question of our era, where technology permeates nearly every facet 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 A Contemporary Backslide

The renowned German philosopher Immanuel Kant once defined the Enlightenment as "humanity's emergence from its self-inflicted nonage." This immaturity, he wrote, "is the incapacity to use one's own understanding without guidance from an external source." For ages, that guiding "other" for society was often the clergyman, the king, or the feudal lord – entities purporting to channel divine will. To comprehend natural events like changing seasons, people looked for explanations in religion. In organizing the fabric of society, from economics to love, faith acted as the main compass.

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

Kant maintained that humans had the ability to think rationally. They just didn't have the boldness to use it. With revolutions in the 18th century, a new dawn arrived: logic would supplant superstition, and the intellect, freed from authority, would become the engine of progress and a more ethical world.

Now, 250 years later, one might wonder if we are quietly regressing into a state of intellectual immaturity. An app dictating a direction is just one example. AI risks becoming our new "other" – a silent guide that influences our choices and behaviors. We risk ceding the hard-won autonomy to think independently – and this time, not to deities or rulers, but to computer programs.

The Rapid Rise and Subtle Dangers of AI Dependence

ChatGPT was launched a mere three years ago, and already 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 looking to algorithms for guidance. Research suggests a significant portion of user queries concern non-work topics. Even more striking than our reliance on AI for judgment is what happens when we let it speak for us. Composition is now one of the top uses for generative AI, just behind practical requests. The celebrated American author Joan Didion famously said, “I write purely to discover what I am thinking.” What occurs when we stop composing? Do we lose that path?

Alarmingly, some evidence suggests the answer may be yes. A study conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used electroencephalography to track the mental engagement of essay writers who had could use AI, traditional search engines, or no aids. Those who could use AI displayed the lowest brain activity and had difficulty quoting their own work. Perhaps most troubling was that after a few months, individuals in the AI group grew increasingly reliant, copying large sections of text.

“Laziness and cowardice,” Kant wrote, “are the reasons why so many of men … remain in perpetual nonage.”

Certainly, AI's appeal lies in its efficiency. It is fast, reduces effort and – importantly – offers a novel way to offload accountability. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm proposed that the appeal of authoritarianism could be understood by a preference to give up personal freedom in exchange for the reassuring certainty of subordination. AI offers a digital avenue for surrendering the burden of having to think and choose.

The Opacity Dilemma: Trust Without Understanding

AI's primary draw is its ability to accomplish things outside human capability – sifting through vast datasets at unprecedented speed. Sitting in the car in Marseille, this was, after all, why I opted to trust the app over my friend (a choice she took as an insult). With knowledge of all the data, certainly the algorithm had superior insight – or so I believed.

The fundamental problem is that AI operates as a black box. It generates knowledge, but without necessarily deepening human comprehension. We do not truly know how AI reaches its decisions – even its programmers acknowledge the opacity. Nor can we verify its reasoning against transparent standards. So when we heed AI's recommendation, we are not being led by logic. We are back in the domain of faith. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, side with 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 aid in medical research, liberate us from tedious tasks, or manage taxes – duties 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 extra free time. Critical thinking was not just about productivity – it was a discipline of freedom and human self-determination.

Human thought is inherently messy and error-prone, but it forces us to debate, to doubt, to test ideas – and to recognize the limits of our own understanding. It builds self-reliance, both individually and as a society. For Kant, the use of reason was never only about information; it was about enabling people to become agents of their own lives, and to resist control. It was about creating a ethical society grounded in the shared principle of reason and debate, rather than blind belief.

With all the undeniable benefits AI offers, the paramount challenge is this: how can we leverage its promise of superhuman intelligence without eroding human reasoning, the cornerstone of the Enlightenment and of liberal democracy themselves? That may be one of the central dilemmas of our time. It is a question we must strive not to outsource to the machine.