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This past summer, I was caught in congested traffic on the scorching streets of a southern French city. At an intersection, my friend in the front seat suggested a right turn toward a famous spot for bouillabaisse. Yet, the digital guide on my phone instructed us to continue straight. Fatigued and overheated, I followed the app's directive. Moments later, we were stuck at a construction site.

A seemingly trivial event, perhaps. But one that captures a central question of our time, where digital tools touches nearly every facet of existence: who gets our trust to a greater degree – fellow humans and our personal instincts, or the algorithm?

A Call for Intellectual Maturity and A Contemporary Backslide

The influential German philosopher Immanuel Kant famously described the Enlightenment as "man's release from its self-imposed immaturity." This state, he wrote, "represents the inability to use one's own understanding without direction from another." For ages, that directing force for human thought was frequently the clergyman, the monarch, or the feudal lord – figures purporting to channel God's voice. To comprehend natural events like changing seasons, people looked for explanations in religion. In shaping the fabric of society, from commerce to love, religious doctrine served as the main compass.

“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 employ it. With upheavals in America and France, a new dawn emerged: reason would supplant superstition, and the human mind, liberated from dogma, would become the engine of advancement and a better world.

Today, two and a half centuries later, one might question if we are slipping back into a form of intellectual immaturity. An app dictating a driving route is merely the start. AI threatens to become our new "other" – a unseen guide that steers our choices and actions. We risk ceding the hard-won 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 debuted a mere three years ago, and already a global survey found that an overwhelming majority 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 counsel. Data suggests a large majority of user queries relate to personal life matters. Even more striking than our use of AI for judgment is what occurs when we let it speak for us. Composition is now among the most common uses for generative AI, just behind everyday tasks. The celebrated American author Joan Didion famously said, “I write purely to find out what I am thinking.” What occurs when we stop composing? Do we lose that path?

Alarmingly, emerging research suggests the outcome may be affirmative. A study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used brain monitoring to track the mental engagement of essay writers who had could use AI, Google, or nothing. Those who could use AI displayed the least cognitive engagement and had difficulty quoting their own work. Maybe most troubling was that over time, individuals in the AI group became increasingly reliant, pasting large sections of text.

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

Certainly, AI's appeal lies in its convenience. It is fast, minimizes work and – critically – offers a novel way to abdicate responsibility. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm argued that the rise of fascism could be partly explained by a preference to give up autonomy in for the sake of the reassuring certainty of obedience. AI offers a modern method of relinquishing the burden of having to think and choose.

The Opacity Dilemma: Trust Without Understanding

AI's greatest allure is its ability to perform tasks beyond our minds – sifting through vast datasets at unprecedented speed. Stuck in the car in Marseille, this was, ultimately, why I chose to believe the machine over my companion (a choice she took as an affront). With access to all the data, surely the app must know best – or so I believed.

The fundamental problem is that AI operates as a black box. It produces answers, but without necessarily deepening human understanding. We do not truly know how AI reaches its decisions – even its programmers acknowledge the opacity. Nor can we check its logic against transparent standards. So when we heed 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, side with the machine – that could be our future credo.

Harnessing Without Eroding: The Essential Challenge

AI can be a powerful tool for mankind in rational inquiry. It can aid in medical research, liberate us from tedious tasks, or handle administrative chores – work that demand little thought and offer little satisfaction. All to the good. But Kant and his peers did not champion reason over faith just so humans could assemble better furniture or have extra free time. Independent thought was not merely about productivity – it was a discipline of freedom and human emancipation.

Human thought is often chaotic and fallible, but it forces us to argue, to question, to challenge concepts – and to recognize the limits of our own knowledge. It builds self-reliance, both individually and collectively. For Kant, the exercise of reason was never solely about information; it was about enabling people to become authors of their own lives, and to oppose control. It was about creating a moral community based on the common foundation of reason and debate, rather than blind belief.

With all the undeniable benefits AI brings, the key question is this: how can we leverage its potential of advanced capability without eroding human reasoning, the cornerstone of the Enlightenment and of liberal democracy itself? That is likely one of the defining questions of our century. It is a question we would do well not to delegate to the algorithm.