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This recent season, I was caught in gridlocked traffic on the sweltering streets of Marseille. At an intersection, my companion in the passenger seat advised a right turn toward a renowned spot for fish soup. However, the digital guide on my phone commanded us to continue straight. Fatigued and overheated, I followed the app's directive. Moments later, we were stranded at a construction site.

A minor incident, perhaps. But one that encapsulates a central question of our time, where technology permeates 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 A Contemporary Backslide

The renowned German philosopher Immanuel Kant once defined the Enlightenment as "humanity's emergence from its self-imposed immaturity." This immaturity, he wrote, "represents the incapacity to use one's own understanding without direction from another." For centuries, that guiding "other" for human thought was often the priest, the monarch, or the feudal lord – figures purporting to channel God's voice. To comprehend phenomena like changing seasons, people looked for explanations in religion. In organizing the fabric of society, from commerce to love, religious doctrine served as the primary guide.

“Sapere aude!” or “Have courage to use your reason!”

Kant argued that humans had the ability to think rationally. They simply lacked the confidence to use it. With upheavals in America and France, a fresh era arrived: reason would supplant superstition, and the human mind, freed from authority, would become the driver of advancement and a more ethical world.

Now, two and a half centuries 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 contemporary authority – a unseen overseer that steers our choices and actions. We are in danger of relinquishing the historically earned autonomy to think independently – and now, not to deities or rulers, but to computer programs.

The Swift Adoption and Hidden Risks of Algorithmic Reliance

ChatGPT debuted only in 2022, and already a recent study found that an vast number of respondents had used AI in the preceding half-year. Whether deciding on ending a relationship or selecting a vote, individuals are increasingly turning to algorithms for counsel. Data suggests a large majority of user queries relate to non-work topics. Even more striking than our use of AI for advice is what happens when we let it express for us. Composition is now one of the top uses for tools like ChatGPT, second only to practical requests. 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, emerging research suggests the outcome may be affirmative. A study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used electroencephalography to observe the mental engagement of participants who had access to AI, Google, or no aids. Those who could rely on AI displayed the least brain activity and had trouble quoting their own work. Perhaps most troubling was that after a few months, individuals 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 saves time, minimizes work 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 give up autonomy in for the sake of the reassuring certainty of subordination. AI presents a modern avenue for relinquishing the weight of having to decide for oneself.

The Opacity Dilemma: Faith Over Reason

AI's greatest allure is its capacity 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 companion (a decision she took as an insult). With access to all the data, certainly the app must know best – or so I thought.

The fundamental problem is that AI operates as a opaque system. It produces answers, but not always deepening human understanding. We do not truly know the process behind its conclusions – 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 back in the domain of faith. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, trust the machine – that may become our 21st-century credo.

Harnessing Without Eroding: The Critical Balance

AI can be a formidable ally for mankind in rational inquiry. It can aid in inventing drugs, liberate us from "bullshit jobs", or handle taxes – duties that demand little thought and offer little satisfaction. All to the good. But Kant and his contemporaries did not champion reason over faith just so humans could assemble better furniture or have more leisure. Independent thought was not just about productivity – it was a practice of liberty and human emancipation.

Human thought is often chaotic and fallible, but it forces us to debate, to doubt, to challenge concepts – and to acknowledge the boundaries of our own knowledge. It fosters confidence, both personally and as a society. For Kant, the use of reason was never only about acquiring knowledge; it was about empowering people to become agents of their own destinies, and to oppose domination. It was about creating a ethical society grounded in the common foundation of reason and debate, rather than unquestioning acceptance.

With all the undeniable benefits AI brings, the paramount challenge is this: how can we leverage its potential of advanced capability without undermining human reasoning, the cornerstone of the Enlightenment and of liberal democracy themselves? That may be one of the defining questions of our century. It is a question we must strive not to outsource to the algorithm.