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This past summer, I found myself navigating in congested traffic on the scorching streets of a southern French city. At a crossing, my companion in the front seat advised a right turn toward a famous spot for fish soup. Yet, the navigation app on my phone commanded us to continue straight. Weary and in a stifling car, I followed the algorithm's directive. Minutes later, we were stuck at a construction site.

A minor event, perhaps. But one that encapsulates a defining dilemma of our time, where technology touches almost every aspect of our lives: who gets our trust more – other people and our own intuition, or the machine?

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-inflicted immaturity." This state, he wrote, "is the incapacity to use one's personal reason without guidance from an external source." For ages, that guiding "other" for society was often the clergyman, the king, or the feudal lord – figures purporting to channel divine will. To explain natural events like volcanic eruptions, people looked for explanations in theology. In organizing the social world, from economics to love, religious doctrine acted as the primary guide.

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

Kant maintained that humans had the ability to think rationally. They just didn't have the confidence to employ it. With upheavals in America and France, a new dawn emerged: logic would supplant superstition, and the human mind, liberated from dogma, would become the engine of advancement and a better world.

Now, two and a half centuries later, one might question if we are slipping back into a form of intellectual immaturity. An app dictating a direction is just one example. AI risks becoming our contemporary authority – a unseen overseer that influences our decisions and actions. We risk relinquishing the historically earned courage to think independently – and this time, not to gods or kings, but to computer programs.

The Swift Adoption and Hidden Risks of Algorithmic Reliance

ChatGPT debuted only in 2022, and already a recent study found that an overwhelming majority of respondents had used AI in the previous six months. Whether contemplating a breakup or selecting a vote, individuals are increasingly turning to algorithms for counsel. Research suggests a large majority of user queries relate to non-work topics. Even more striking than our use of AI for judgment is what happens when we let it express for us. Writing is now among the top uses for tools like ChatGPT, second only to practical requests. The late American author Joan Didion famously said, “I write purely to discover what I am thinking.” What occurs when we cease writing? Do we cease discovering?

Alarmingly, some evidence hints the outcome may be affirmative. A study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used brain monitoring to observe the cognitive activity of participants who had could use AI, traditional search engines, or nothing. Those who could rely on AI displayed the lowest cognitive engagement and had difficulty quoting their own work. Perhaps most concerning was that after a few months, participants 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 … remain in lifelong immaturity.”

Of course, AI's attraction stems from its efficiency. It is fast, minimizes work and – importantly – offers a novel way to abdicate responsibility. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm argued that the appeal of authoritarianism could be understood by a preference to give up personal freedom in exchange for the reassuring certainty of obedience. AI presents a modern avenue for relinquishing the weight of having to decide for oneself.

The Opacity Dilemma: Faith Over Reason

AI's primary draw is its capacity to perform tasks outside human capability – analyzing vast datasets at unprecedented speed. Sitting 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 core issue is that AI operates as a black box. It generates answers, but not always deepening human understanding. We cannot fully grasp the process behind its conclusions – even its programmers admit this. Nor can we verify its reasoning against clear, objective criteria. So when we follow AI's advice, 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 21st-century guiding principle.

Using Without Losing: The Essential Challenge

AI can be a formidable ally for humanity in scientific pursuit. It can help inventing drugs, free us from "bullshit jobs", or handle taxes – work that are repetitive and are unfulfilling. All to the good. But Kant and his peers did not advocate for reason over faith just so humans could optimize chores or have more leisure. Independent thought was not just about efficiency – 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 fosters confidence, both individually and collectively. For Kant, the exercise of reason was never only about information; it was about enabling people to become agents of their own lives, and to resist control. It was about building a ethical society based on the shared principle 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 superhuman intelligence without undermining human reasoning, the bedrock of the Enlightenment and of free societies themselves? That is likely one of the central dilemmas of our century. It is a question we must strive not to delegate to the machine.