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This recent season, I found myself navigating in congested traffic on the sweltering streets of Marseille. At a crossing, my friend in the passenger seat suggested a right turn toward a famous spot for fish soup. Yet, the digital guide on my phone commanded us to go forward. Weary and overheated, I followed the app's advice. Minutes later, we were stuck at a construction site.

A seemingly trivial incident, maybe. But one that encapsulates a central question of our era, where technology touches almost every aspect of our lives: whom do we trust to a greater degree – other people and our personal instincts, or the algorithm?

A Call for Intellectual Maturity and Our Modern Relapse

The influential German philosopher Immanuel Kant famously described the Enlightenment as "man's release from its self-imposed immaturity." This immaturity, he argued, "is the inability to use one's own understanding without guidance from an external source." For ages, that guiding "other" for society was frequently the priest, the monarch, or the feudal lord – entities purporting to speak for God's voice. To explain natural events like changing seasons, 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 own understanding!”

Kant maintained that humans always possessed the ability to think rationally. They simply lacked the boldness to employ it. With revolutions in the 18th century, a new dawn arrived: logic would supplant superstition, and the intellect, liberated from authority, would become the driver of progress and a better world.

Now, two and a half centuries later, one might wonder if we are slipping back into a form of intellectual immaturity. An app suggesting a direction is merely the start. Artificial intelligence threatens to become our contemporary authority – a unseen guide that steers our choices and behaviors. We are in danger of relinquishing the hard-won autonomy to reason for ourselves – and this time, not to deities or rulers, but to computer programs.

The Swift Adoption and Hidden Risks of AI Dependence

ChatGPT debuted a mere three years ago, and already a recent study indicated that an vast number of respondents had engaged with artificial intelligence in the previous six months. Whether deciding on a breakup or choosing a candidate, individuals are looking 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 advice is what occurs when we let it speak for us. Writing is now one of the most common uses for generative AI, just behind everyday tasks. The late American author Joan Didion famously said, “I write entirely to discover what I am thinking.” What occurs when we cease writing? Do we lose that path?

Worryingly, some evidence hints the answer may be yes. A study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used brain monitoring to track the cognitive activity of participants who had access to AI, Google, or no aids. Those who could rely on AI showed the lowest brain activity and had difficulty quoting their own work. Maybe most troubling was that over time, individuals in the AI group became increasingly reliant, pasting entire blocks of text.

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

Certainly, AI's attraction lies in its efficiency. It saves time, reduces effort and – importantly – offers a new method to offload responsibility. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm argued that the appeal of authoritarianism could be partly explained by a preference to surrender personal freedom in exchange for the reassuring certainty of obedience. AI offers a digital avenue for relinquishing 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 human capability – sifting through oceans of data at lightning pace. Sitting in the car in Marseille, this was, ultimately, why I opted to trust the machine over my companion (a decision she took as an affront). With access to real-time information, surely the algorithm had superior insight – or so I believed.

The fundamental problem is that AI operates as a opaque system. It produces knowledge, but without necessarily deepening human comprehension. We cannot fully grasp how AI reaches its decisions – even its creators admit this. Nor can we check its reasoning against transparent standards. So when we heed 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 may become our future 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 tedious tasks, or manage administrative chores – work that are repetitive and offer little satisfaction. This is beneficial. But Kant and his peers did not advocate for reason over faith just so humans could optimize chores or have more leisure. Critical thinking was not just about efficiency – it was a discipline of liberty and human self-determination.

Human thought is inherently messy and error-prone, but it compels us to argue, to doubt, to challenge concepts – and to acknowledge the boundaries of our own knowledge. It builds self-reliance, both personally and collectively. For Kant, the use of reason was never solely about information; it was about empowering people to become agents of their own destinies, and to resist control. It was about creating a moral community based on the shared principle of reason and debate, rather than unquestioning acceptance.

With all the advantages AI offers, the key question is this: how can we leverage its potential of superhuman intelligence without eroding human rationality, the bedrock of the Enlightenment and of free societies itself? That is likely one of the central dilemmas of our century. It is a question we would do well not to outsource to the machine.