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This past summer, I found myself navigating in gridlocked traffic on the sweltering streets of Marseille. At a crossing, my companion in the front seat suggested a right turn toward a renowned spot for fish soup. However, the navigation app on my phone instructed us to continue straight. Weary and in a stifling car, I followed the app's advice. Minutes later, we were stranded at a construction site.

A seemingly trivial event, perhaps. But one that encapsulates a central question of our time, where digital tools touches nearly every facet of our lives: who gets our trust more – other people and our personal instincts, or the machine?

The Enlightenment's Promise and A Contemporary Backslide

The renowned German philosopher Immanuel Kant once defined the Enlightenment as "humanity's emergence from its self-imposed immaturity." This state, he argued, "is the incapacity to use one's personal reason without guidance from another." For centuries, that directing force for human thought was often the clergyman, the monarch, or the feudal lord – figures purporting to channel divine will. To explain phenomena like changing seasons, people looked for explanations in theology. In shaping the social world, from commerce to love, faith acted as the main compass.

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

Kant maintained that humans always possessed the capacity for reason. They just didn't have the confidence to use it. With upheavals in the 18th century, a new dawn emerged: reason would supplant superstition, and the human mind, liberated from dogma, would become the driver of progress and a better world.

Now, two and a half centuries later, one might question if we are quietly regressing into a state of dependency. An app suggesting a direction is merely the start. AI risks becoming our contemporary authority – a unseen guide that steers our decisions 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 Swift Adoption and Subtle Dangers of AI Dependence

ChatGPT debuted only in 2022, and already a recent study found that an vast number of respondents had used AI in the previous six months. Whether deciding on ending a relationship or choosing a candidate, individuals are increasingly turning to machines for counsel. Data suggests a significant portion of user queries concern personal life matters. Even more intriguing than our reliance on AI for advice is what occurs when we allow it express for us. Composition is now one of the most common uses for tools like ChatGPT, 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 cease writing? Do we cease discovering?

Alarmingly, emerging research hints the outcome may be affirmative. A study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used brain monitoring to observe the cognitive activity of essay writers who had could use AI, traditional search engines, or nothing. Those who could rely on AI displayed the lowest brain activity and had difficulty quoting their own work. Perhaps most troubling was that over time, participants in the AI group grew increasingly reliant, copying large sections of text.

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

Of course, AI's appeal stems from its efficiency. It is fast, reduces effort and – critically – offers a novel way to offload accountability. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm argued that the appeal of authoritarianism could be partly explained by a preference to give up personal freedom in exchange for the reassuring certainty of obedience. AI presents a digital method of relinquishing the burden of having to decide for oneself.

The Opacity Dilemma: Trust Without Understanding

AI's primary draw is its ability to accomplish things beyond our minds – sifting through oceans of data at unprecedented speed. Stuck in the car in Marseille, this was, ultimately, why I chose to trust the app over my companion (a decision she interpreted as an insult). With access to all the data, certainly the app had superior insight – or so I believed.

The fundamental problem is that AI operates as a opaque system. It generates knowledge, but not always fostering human comprehension. We do not truly know how AI reaches its conclusions – including its creators admit this. Nor can we verify its reasoning against clear, objective criteria. So when we heed AI's recommendation, we are not being guided by reason. We are back in the domain of faith. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, trust the machine – that may become our future credo.

Using Without Losing: The Essential Challenge

AI can be a formidable ally for humanity in rational inquiry. It can aid in inventing drugs, liberate us from "bullshit jobs", or manage taxes – work 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. Critical thinking was not just about efficiency – it was a discipline of liberty and human emancipation.

Human thought is often chaotic and fallible, but it forces us to debate, to question, to test ideas – and to acknowledge the boundaries of our own understanding. It fosters confidence, both personally and collectively. For Kant, the exercise of reason was never only about information; it was about enabling people to become agents of their own destinies, and to oppose domination. It was about building a ethical society based on the shared principle of reason and debate, rather than unquestioning acceptance.

With all the advantages AI offers, the paramount challenge is this: how can we harness its promise of superhuman intelligence without undermining human rationality, the cornerstone of the Enlightenment and of free societies itself? That is likely one of the central dilemmas of our century. It is a question we must strive not to outsource to the machine.