🔗 Share this article

This recent season, I was caught in gridlocked traffic on the sweltering streets of a southern French city. At a crossing, my friend in the passenger seat suggested a right turn toward a famous spot for bouillabaisse. However, the digital guide on my phone instructed us to continue straight. Fatigued and in a stifling car, I followed the algorithm's advice. Moments later, we were stuck at a roadwork site.

A seemingly trivial event, maybe. But one that encapsulates a central dilemma of our time, where digital tools permeates nearly every facet of existence: who gets our trust to a greater degree – other people and our own intuition, or the algorithm?

A Call for Intellectual Maturity and A Contemporary Backslide

The influential German philosopher Immanuel Kant famously described the Enlightenment as "humanity's emergence from its self-imposed immaturity." This immaturity, he argued, "represents the incapacity to use one's own understanding without direction from an external source." For centuries, that directing force for society was often the priest, the king, or the feudal lord – entities claiming to channel God's voice. To explain phenomena like volcanic eruptions, people sought answers in religion. In organizing the social world, from economics to matters of the heart, religious doctrine served as the main compass.

“Sapere aude!” or “Have courage to use your own understanding!”

Kant argued that humans had the capacity for reason. They simply lacked the boldness to employ it. With revolutions in the 18th century, a new dawn emerged: reason would replace superstition, and the human mind, liberated from authority, would become the engine of progress and a better world.

Today, 250 years later, one might wonder if we are slipping back into a form of dependency. An app dictating a driving route is merely the start. AI risks becoming our contemporary authority – a silent guide that steers our choices and actions. We risk ceding the historically earned courage to think independently – and this time, not to gods or kings, but to lines of code.

The Rapid Rise and Hidden Risks of Algorithmic Reliance

ChatGPT debuted a mere three years ago, and already a global survey found that an vast number of people had engaged with artificial intelligence in the previous six months. Whether deciding on ending a relationship or choosing a candidate, individuals are increasingly turning to machines for guidance. Data suggests a significant portion of user queries concern personal life matters. Even more intriguing than our use of AI for advice is what happens when we let it express for us. Writing is now among the top uses for tools like ChatGPT, second only to everyday tasks. The celebrated American author Joan Didion once remarked, “I write purely to find out what I am thinking.” What transpires when we cease writing? Do we cease discovering?

Alarmingly, emerging research suggests the outcome may be yes. A study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used electroencephalography to observe the cognitive activity of essay writers who had access to AI, Google, or nothing. Those who could rely on AI showed the lowest cognitive engagement and had difficulty accurately recalling their own work. Maybe most concerning was that after a few months, participants in the AI group became progressively lazier, pasting large sections of text.

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

Of course, AI's attraction stems from its efficiency. It is fast, reduces effort and – critically – offers a novel way to abdicate responsibility. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm proposed that the appeal of authoritarianism could be partly explained by a human tendency to surrender personal freedom in for the sake of the reassuring certainty of obedience. AI presents a modern avenue for surrendering the burden of having to think and choose.

The Opacity Dilemma: Faith Over Reason

AI's greatest allure is its ability to perform tasks beyond human capability – analyzing oceans of data at lightning pace. Sitting in the car in Marseille, this was, ultimately, why I opted to trust the machine over my friend (a decision she interpreted as an affront). With knowledge of real-time information, certainly the app had superior insight – or so I believed.

The core issue is that AI is a black box. It produces answers, but not always fostering human comprehension. We cannot fully grasp the process behind its conclusions – even its programmers admit this. Nor can we verify its logic against transparent standards. So when we follow 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, side with the machine – that could be our 21st-century guiding principle.

Using Without Losing: The Critical Balance

AI can be a powerful tool for humanity in scientific pursuit. It can aid in medical research, free us from tedious tasks, or handle administrative chores – duties that are repetitive and offer little satisfaction. All to the good. But Kant and his contemporaries did not advocate for reason over faith just so humans could assemble better furniture or have more leisure. Independent thought was not merely about productivity – it was a practice of liberty and human self-determination.

Human thought is often chaotic and fallible, but it forces us to argue, to doubt, to test ideas – and to recognize the boundaries of our own understanding. It fosters confidence, both individually and collectively. For Kant, the use of reason was never only about information; it was about empowering people to become authors of their own lives, and to resist control. It was about building a ethical society grounded in the common foundation of reason and debate, rather than blind belief.

With all the undeniable benefits AI brings, the paramount challenge is this: how can we leverage its promise of advanced capability without eroding human rationality, the bedrock of the Enlightenment and of free societies themselves? That is likely one of the defining questions of our time. It is a question we would do well not to outsource to the machine.