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This past summer, I was caught in gridlocked traffic on the sweltering streets of Marseille. At a crossing, my companion in the front seat suggested a right turn toward a famous spot for bouillabaisse. Yet, the digital guide on my phone commanded us to go forward. Fatigued and in a stifling car, I heeded the app's directive. Minutes later, we were stranded at a roadwork site.

A minor event, maybe. But one that captures a central dilemma of our time, where digital tools touches almost every aspect of existence: who gets our trust to a greater degree – fellow humans and our own intuition, or the algorithm?

The Enlightenment's Promise and A Contemporary Backslide

The influential German philosopher Immanuel Kant once defined the Enlightenment as "man's release from its self-inflicted immaturity." This state, he wrote, "is the inability to use one's personal reason without direction from another." For ages, that directing force for human thought was frequently the priest, the monarch, or the feudal lord – figures purporting to speak for divine will. To explain phenomena like changing seasons, people looked for explanations in religion. In organizing the fabric of society, from economics to love, religious doctrine acted as the primary guide.

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

Kant argued that humans always possessed the capacity for reason. They just didn't have the confidence to use it. With upheavals in America and France, a new dawn arrived: logic would supplant blind faith, and the human mind, liberated from dogma, would become the driver of advancement and a better world.

Now, 250 years later, one might question if we are slipping back into a form of dependency. An app dictating a direction is merely the start. Artificial intelligence threatens to become our new "other" – a unseen overseer that influences our choices and actions. We are in danger of ceding the historically earned autonomy to reason for ourselves – and now, not to deities or rulers, but to computer programs.

The Rapid Rise and Subtle Dangers of AI Dependence

ChatGPT was launched only in 2022, and yet a global survey indicated that an vast number of respondents had engaged with artificial intelligence in the preceding half-year. Whether deciding on ending a relationship or selecting a vote, individuals are looking to machines for counsel. Data suggests a significant portion of user queries relate to non-work topics. Even more intriguing than our use of AI for advice is what happens when we allow it express for us. Composition is now among the top uses for tools like ChatGPT, just behind practical requests. The late American author Joan Didion once remarked, “I write entirely to discover what I am thinking.” What transpires when we stop composing? Do we lose that path?

Alarmingly, emerging research suggests the answer may be affirmative. A study conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used brain monitoring to track the mental engagement of participants who had access to AI, traditional search engines, or no aids. Those who could rely on AI showed the lowest cognitive engagement and had trouble quoting their own work. Maybe most concerning was that over time, individuals in the AI group became increasingly reliant, copying large sections of text.

“Laziness and cowardice,” Kant wrote, “are the reasons why so great a proportion of men … stay in perpetual nonage.”

Certainly, AI's appeal stems from its efficiency. It saves time, minimizes work and – importantly – offers a new method to offload accountability. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm proposed that the appeal of authoritarianism could be understood by a human tendency to surrender personal freedom in for the sake of the comforting security of obedience. AI presents a digital method of relinquishing the burden of having to think and choose.

The Opacity Dilemma: Faith Over Reason

AI's greatest allure is its ability to accomplish things beyond our minds – sifting through vast datasets at unprecedented speed. Sitting in the car in Marseille, this was, after all, why I opted to trust the machine over my companion (a choice she took as an affront). With knowledge of real-time information, certainly the app must know best – or so I believed.

The fundamental problem is that AI operates as a opaque system. It produces knowledge, but not always fostering human understanding. We do not truly know the process behind its conclusions – including its creators acknowledge the opacity. Nor can we verify its logic against clear, objective criteria. So when we heed AI's recommendation, 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.

Harnessing Without Eroding: The Critical Balance

AI can be a powerful tool for humanity in scientific pursuit. It can aid in medical research, free us from "bullshit jobs", or manage taxes – duties that demand little thought and are unfulfilling. This is beneficial. But Kant and his peers did not advocate for reason over faith 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 emancipation.

Human thought is inherently messy and error-prone, but it compels us to argue, to doubt, to test ideas – and to recognize the limits of our own understanding. It fosters self-reliance, both personally and collectively. For Kant, the use of reason was never only about information; it was about enabling people to become agents of their own lives, and to oppose control. It was about creating a ethical society based on the shared principle of rational discourse, rather than blind belief.

With all the advantages AI offers, the key question is this: how can we leverage its promise of superhuman intelligence without undermining human rationality, the bedrock of the Enlightenment and of free societies themselves? That may be one of the central dilemmas of our century. It is a question we must strive not to outsource to the machine.