🔗 Share this article

This past summer, I found myself navigating in gridlocked traffic on the scorching streets of a southern French city. At an intersection, my friend in the passenger seat advised a right turn toward a renowned spot for fish soup. Yet, the navigation app on my phone commanded us to go forward. Weary and overheated, I heeded the app's directive. Minutes later, we were stranded at a roadwork site.

A minor event, perhaps. But one that captures a central question of our era, where technology permeates almost every aspect of existence: whom do we trust more – 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 "man's release from its self-inflicted nonage." This state, he wrote, "represents the incapacity to use one's personal reason without direction from an external source." For ages, that guiding "other" for society was frequently the clergyman, the king, or the landowner – figures purporting to channel God's voice. To comprehend phenomena like volcanic eruptions, people sought answers in theology. In shaping the social world, from commerce to love, religious doctrine acted as the primary guide.

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

Kant argued that humans had the ability to think rationally. They simply lacked the boldness to use it. With revolutions in America and France, a fresh era emerged: logic would replace superstition, and the intellect, freed from authority, would become the driver of progress and a more ethical world.

Now, two and a half centuries later, one might question if we are slipping back into a state of dependency. An app suggesting a direction is just one example. Artificial intelligence risks becoming our new "other" – a silent overseer that influences our decisions and behaviors. We risk relinquishing the hard-won courage to think independently – and this time, not to gods or kings, but to lines of code.

The Swift Adoption and Subtle Dangers of AI Dependence

ChatGPT was launched only in 2022, and yet a recent study indicated that an overwhelming majority of people had used AI in the preceding half-year. Whether contemplating ending a relationship or choosing a candidate, individuals are looking to algorithms for guidance. Data suggests a significant portion of user queries relate to personal life matters. Even more striking than our reliance on AI for advice is what happens when we allow it speak for us. Composition is now among the most common uses for generative AI, just behind practical requests. The late American author Joan Didion once remarked, “I write entirely to find out what I am thinking.” What occurs when we cease writing? Do we cease discovering?

Worryingly, emerging research suggests the answer may be affirmative. A study conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used brain monitoring to track the cognitive activity of essay writers who had could use AI, traditional search engines, or no aids. Those who could rely on AI showed the lowest brain activity and had trouble accurately recalling their own work. Maybe most troubling was that after a few months, participants in the AI group grew increasingly reliant, copying entire blocks of text.

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

Of course, AI's appeal lies in its convenience. It saves time, minimizes work and – critically – offers a novel way to offload accountability. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm proposed that the rise of fascism could be partly explained by a human tendency to give up autonomy in for the sake of the comforting security of obedience. AI offers a digital method of surrendering the burden of having to decide for oneself.

The Opacity Dilemma: Faith Over Reason

AI's greatest allure is its ability to perform tasks beyond human capability – analyzing oceans of data at unprecedented speed. Stuck in the car in Marseille, this was, ultimately, why I opted to believe the app over my friend (a choice she interpreted as an insult). With knowledge of all the data, certainly the app had superior insight – or so I thought.

The core issue is that AI operates as a black box. It produces knowledge, but without necessarily deepening human understanding. We cannot fully grasp how AI reaches its decisions – including its creators admit this. Nor can we check its logic against clear, objective criteria. So when we heed AI's advice, we are not being led by logic. We are back in the realm 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 powerful tool for humanity in scientific pursuit. It can aid in 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 enlightenment just so humans could optimize chores or have extra free time. Critical thinking was not merely about efficiency – it was a practice of liberty and human self-determination.

Human thought is often chaotic and fallible, but it compels us to argue, to doubt, to test ideas – and to recognize the boundaries of our own understanding. It builds self-reliance, 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 authors of their own lives, and to oppose control. It was about building a ethical society based on the common foundation of rational discourse, rather than blind belief.

With all the advantages AI offers, the key question remains: how can we harness its promise of advanced capability without undermining human rationality, the bedrock of the Enlightenment and of free societies 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.