🔗 Share this article

This past summer, I was caught in congested traffic on the sweltering streets of Marseille. At an intersection, my companion in the passenger seat suggested a right turn toward a famous spot for bouillabaisse. However, the navigation app on my phone instructed us to go forward. Fatigued and overheated, I followed the app's advice. Moments later, we were stranded at a construction site.

A minor event, maybe. But one that captures a defining dilemma of our time, where technology touches nearly every facet of existence: who gets our trust to a greater degree – other people and our personal instincts, or the machine?

A Call for Intellectual Maturity and Our Modern Relapse

The influential German philosopher Immanuel Kant famously described the Enlightenment as "humanity's emergence from its self-inflicted nonage." This immaturity, he argued, "is the inability to use one's own understanding without direction from an external source." For ages, that guiding "other" for society was frequently the clergyman, the monarch, or the feudal lord – entities purporting to speak for divine will. To comprehend natural events like changing seasons, people looked for explanations in theology. In organizing the fabric of society, from commerce to love, faith acted as the main compass.

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

Kant maintained that humans always possessed the capacity for reason. They simply lacked the confidence to employ it. With revolutions in America and France, a new dawn emerged: reason would supplant blind faith, and the human mind, freed from dogma, would become the engine of progress and a more ethical world.

Today, 250 years later, one might question if we are slipping back into a form of dependency. An app suggesting a driving route is just one example. AI threatens to become our contemporary authority – a silent guide that steers our decisions and behaviors. We are in danger of ceding the historically earned courage to think independently – and now, not to gods or kings, but to computer programs.

The Swift Adoption and Subtle Dangers of AI Dependence

ChatGPT was launched a mere three years ago, and already a global survey found that an overwhelming majority of respondents had engaged with artificial intelligence in the preceding half-year. Whether deciding on a breakup or selecting a vote, individuals are looking to machines for guidance. Data suggests a large majority of user prompts relate to non-work topics. Even more striking than our use of AI for judgment is what occurs when we allow it express for us. Composition is now one of the top uses for generative AI, just behind practical requests. The celebrated American author Joan Didion famously said, “I write entirely to discover what I am thinking.” What transpires when we stop composing? Do we cease discovering?

Worryingly, some evidence hints the outcome may be yes. A study conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used electroencephalography to observe the mental engagement of essay writers who had could use AI, traditional search engines, or nothing. Those who could rely on AI displayed the least brain activity and had trouble quoting their own work. Maybe most concerning was that after a few months, individuals in the AI group became progressively lazier, copying entire blocks of text.

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

Certainly, AI's appeal stems from its convenience. It is fast, minimizes work and – critically – offers a novel way to offload accountability. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm argued that the rise of fascism could be understood by a human tendency to give up personal freedom in exchange for the reassuring certainty of obedience. AI offers a digital avenue for surrendering the weight of having to decide for oneself.

The Opacity Dilemma: Trust Without Understanding

AI's primary draw is its capacity to perform tasks beyond human capability – analyzing oceans of data at unprecedented speed. Sitting in the car in Marseille, this was, ultimately, why I chose to believe the app over my friend (a decision she took as an insult). With knowledge of real-time information, certainly the app must know best – or so I thought.

The core issue is that AI operates as a black box. It produces knowledge, but not always fostering human understanding. We cannot fully grasp the process behind its conclusions – including its creators admit this. Nor can we check its reasoning against clear, objective criteria. So when we heed AI's recommendation, we are not being led by logic. We are returning to the realm of faith. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, side with the machine – that could be our future guiding principle.

Harnessing Without Eroding: The Critical Balance

AI can be a powerful tool for humanity in scientific pursuit. It can aid in inventing drugs, liberate us from "bullshit jobs", or manage taxes – duties that are repetitive and offer little satisfaction. All to the good. But Kant and his contemporaries did not champion reason over faith just so humans could optimize chores or have extra free time. Critical thinking was not merely about productivity – it was a practice of liberty and human self-determination.

Human thought is inherently messy and error-prone, but it compels us to debate, to doubt, to test ideas – and to recognize the boundaries of our own knowledge. It fosters self-reliance, both individually and as a society. For Kant, the use of reason was never only about acquiring knowledge; it was about enabling people to become authors 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 unquestioning acceptance.

With all the undeniable benefits AI brings, the paramount challenge remains: how can we harness its potential of superhuman intelligence without undermining 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 must strive not to outsource to the algorithm.