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This recent season, I found myself navigating in congested traffic on the sweltering streets of a southern French city. At an intersection, my friend in the passenger seat advised a right turn toward a famous spot for fish soup. Yet, the navigation app on my phone instructed us to continue straight. Weary and overheated, I followed the algorithm's directive. Minutes later, we were stranded at a construction site.

A minor incident, perhaps. But one that captures a central question of our era, where technology permeates almost every aspect of our lives: who gets our trust more – fellow humans and our personal instincts, or the algorithm?

The Enlightenment's Promise and A Contemporary Backslide

The influential German philosopher Immanuel Kant once defined the Enlightenment as "humanity's emergence from its self-imposed nonage." This state, he argued, "represents the inability to use one's own understanding without guidance from another." For centuries, that guiding "other" for human thought was often the priest, the monarch, or the feudal lord – entities purporting to channel divine will. To comprehend phenomena like volcanic eruptions, people sought answers in theology. In organizing the fabric of society, from economics to love, faith acted as the main compass.

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

Kant maintained that humans had the ability to think rationally. They simply lacked the confidence to employ it. With revolutions in the 18th century, a fresh era emerged: reason would supplant superstition, and the human mind, liberated from dogma, would become the driver of progress and a more ethical world.

Today, 250 years later, one might question if we are slipping back into a state of intellectual immaturity. An app dictating a driving route is merely the start. Artificial intelligence threatens to become our contemporary authority – a unseen guide that steers our decisions and actions. We risk ceding the hard-won courage to reason for ourselves – and now, not to gods or kings, but to lines of code.

The Rapid Rise and Hidden Risks of Algorithmic Reliance

ChatGPT debuted only in 2022, and yet a global survey found that an vast number of respondents had used AI in the preceding half-year. Whether deciding on ending a relationship or selecting a vote, individuals are looking to algorithms for counsel. Data suggests a significant portion of user prompts 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 top uses for tools like ChatGPT, just behind everyday tasks. The celebrated American author Joan Didion famously said, “I write purely to find out 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 brain monitoring to track the mental engagement of essay writers who had could use AI, Google, or no aids. Those who could rely on AI displayed the lowest cognitive engagement and had difficulty accurately recalling their own work. Maybe most concerning was that over time, individuals in the AI group became progressively lazier, pasting entire blocks of text.

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

Of course, AI's attraction stems from its efficiency. It is fast, reduces effort and – importantly – offers a new method to abdicate 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 modern avenue for relinquishing the burden of having to think and choose.

The Opacity Dilemma: Faith Over Reason

AI's greatest allure is its capacity to perform tasks beyond human capability – analyzing vast datasets at unprecedented speed. Sitting in the car in Marseille, this was, after all, why I chose to believe the machine over my friend (a choice she took as an affront). With knowledge of real-time information, certainly the app had superior insight – or so I thought.

The core issue is that AI is a opaque system. It generates answers, but without necessarily fostering human understanding. We cannot fully grasp the process behind its conclusions – including its creators admit this. Nor can we verify its logic against clear, objective criteria. So when we heed AI's recommendation, we are not being led by logic. We are back in the realm of belief. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, side with the machine – that may become our 21st-century guiding principle.

Harnessing Without Eroding: The Critical Balance

AI can be a powerful tool for humanity in rational inquiry. It can aid in medical research, liberate us from "bullshit jobs", or handle administrative chores – work that demand little thought and offer little satisfaction. This is beneficial. But Kant and his peers did not champion reason over faith just so humans could assemble better furniture or have more leisure. Critical thinking was not merely about productivity – it was a discipline of freedom and human emancipation.

Human thought is inherently messy and error-prone, but it compels us to argue, to question, to challenge concepts – and to acknowledge the boundaries of our own knowledge. It fosters self-reliance, both individually and as a society. 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 domination. 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 remains: how can we leverage its promise of advanced capability without undermining human rationality, the cornerstone of the Enlightenment and of liberal democracy themselves? That is likely one of the central dilemmas of our time. It is a question we would do well not to outsource to the algorithm.