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This recent season, I was caught in gridlocked traffic on the scorching streets of a southern French city. At an intersection, my companion in the front seat advised a right turn toward a famous spot for fish soup. Yet, the digital guide on my phone commanded us to go forward. Weary and in a stifling car, I heeded the app's advice. Minutes later, we were stuck at a roadwork site.

A seemingly trivial event, perhaps. But one that captures a defining question of our era, where technology touches nearly every facet of our lives: who gets our trust more – other people and our own intuition, or the machine?

The Enlightenment's Promise and Our Modern Relapse

The renowned German philosopher Immanuel Kant famously described the Enlightenment as "man's release from its self-inflicted nonage." This immaturity, he argued, "represents the inability to use one's own understanding without guidance from an external source." For ages, that guiding "other" for human thought was often the priest, the monarch, or the feudal lord – figures claiming to speak for divine will. To explain phenomena like changing seasons, people looked for explanations in theology. In shaping the fabric of society, from economics to matters of the heart, faith acted as the main compass.

“Sapere aude!” or “Dare to use your reason!”

Kant argued that humans always possessed the capacity for reason. They just didn't have the boldness to use it. With revolutions in America and France, a fresh era arrived: logic would supplant superstition, and the human mind, liberated from dogma, would become the driver of advancement and a more ethical world.

Now, 250 years later, one might wonder if we are quietly regressing into a state of dependency. An app suggesting a driving route is merely the start. AI risks becoming our contemporary authority – a silent guide that steers our choices and actions. We are in danger of 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 Subtle Dangers of AI Dependence

ChatGPT was launched only in 2022, and yet a recent study indicated that an vast number of respondents 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 algorithms for guidance. Research suggests a large majority of user prompts relate to personal life matters. Even more striking than our use of AI for judgment is what occurs when we let it express for us. Writing is now among the top uses for generative AI, just behind practical requests. The celebrated American author Joan Didion once remarked, “I write purely to find out what I am thinking.” What occurs when we cease writing? Do we cease discovering?

Alarmingly, emerging research suggests the answer may be affirmative. A study conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used electroencephalography to track the cognitive activity of participants who had could use AI, Google, or no aids. Those who could use AI displayed the least cognitive engagement and had difficulty quoting their own work. Perhaps most concerning was that over time, individuals in the AI group grew progressively lazier, pasting entire blocks of text.

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

Certainly, AI's attraction lies in its convenience. It saves time, minimizes work and – critically – offers a novel way to abdicate accountability. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm argued that the rise of fascism could be understood by a preference to surrender autonomy in for the sake of the reassuring certainty of subordination. AI offers a modern avenue for relinquishing the burden of having to think and choose.

The Black Box Problem: Faith Over Reason

AI's greatest allure is its capacity to accomplish things outside our minds – sifting through oceans of data at unprecedented speed. Stuck in the car in Marseille, this was, after all, why I chose to believe the app over my companion (a choice she took as an affront). With access to real-time information, surely the algorithm must know best – or so I believed.

The fundamental problem is that AI operates as a opaque system. It generates knowledge, but without necessarily fostering human comprehension. We do not truly know the process behind its decisions – including its programmers admit this. Nor can we verify its reasoning against transparent standards. So when we follow AI's advice, we are not being guided by reason. We are returning to the domain of faith. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, trust the machine – that could be our 21st-century guiding principle.

Using Without Losing: The Essential Challenge

AI can be a formidable ally for humanity in scientific pursuit. It can help medical research, free us from tedious tasks, or manage administrative chores – work that demand little thought and offer little satisfaction. This is beneficial. But Kant and his contemporaries did not advocate for enlightenment just so humans could optimize chores or have extra free time. Independent thought was not just about productivity – it was a practice of freedom and human self-determination.

Human thought is inherently messy and error-prone, but it compels us to debate, to doubt, to challenge concepts – and to recognize the limits of our own understanding. It builds self-reliance, both personally and collectively. For Kant, the exercise of reason was never only about information; it was about empowering people to become agents of their own destinies, and to oppose domination. It was about creating a moral community grounded in the common foundation of reason and debate, rather than blind belief.

With all the undeniable benefits AI offers, the paramount challenge is this: how can we harness its promise of superhuman intelligence without undermining human reasoning, the bedrock of the Enlightenment and of liberal democracy itself? That may be one of the central dilemmas of our century. It is a question we would do well not to delegate to the machine.