🔗 Share this article

This recent season, I found myself navigating 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 fish soup. However, the digital guide on my phone commanded us to continue straight. Weary and overheated, I followed the app's directive. Moments later, we were stuck at a construction site.

A minor event, maybe. But one that captures a defining dilemma of our era, where digital tools touches nearly every facet of our lives: whom do we trust more – fellow humans and our personal instincts, or the machine?

The Enlightenment's Promise and Our Modern Relapse

The renowned German philosopher Immanuel Kant once defined the Enlightenment as "man's release from its self-inflicted nonage." This immaturity, he argued, "represents the incapacity to use one's personal reason without guidance from an external source." For centuries, that directing force for society was frequently the clergyman, the king, or the feudal lord – figures claiming to speak for divine will. To comprehend natural events like changing seasons, people sought answers in theology. In shaping the fabric of society, from commerce to matters of the heart, faith acted as the main compass.

“Sapere aude!” or “Have courage to use your reason!”

Kant maintained that humans had the ability to think rationally. They just didn't have the boldness to use it. With upheavals in the 18th century, a fresh era arrived: reason would supplant blind faith, and the intellect, freed from authority, would become the driver of advancement and a more ethical world.

Now, two and a half centuries later, one might wonder if we are slipping back into a state of dependency. An app dictating a direction is just one example. Artificial intelligence risks becoming our contemporary authority – a unseen overseer that influences our choices and behaviors. We are in danger of ceding the historically earned courage to think independently – and now, not to deities or rulers, but to computer programs.

The Swift Adoption and Hidden Risks of AI Dependence

ChatGPT was launched a mere three years ago, and yet a recent study found that an vast number of people had used AI in the previous six months. Whether contemplating ending a relationship or choosing a candidate, individuals are increasingly turning to algorithms for guidance. Data suggests a large majority of user queries concern personal life matters. Even more intriguing than our use of AI for judgment is what happens when we allow it speak for us. Composition is now among the most common uses for generative AI, second only to practical requests. The celebrated American author Joan Didion once remarked, “I write purely to find out what I am thinking.” What transpires when we stop composing? Do we lose that path?

Alarmingly, some evidence 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 access to AI, traditional search engines, or no aids. Those who could use AI displayed the least cognitive engagement and had difficulty accurately recalling their own work. Perhaps most concerning was that over time, participants in the AI group became progressively lazier, copying entire blocks of text.

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

Of course, AI's attraction stems from its efficiency. It saves time, reduces effort and – importantly – 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 autonomy in exchange for the reassuring certainty of subordination. AI offers a modern method of surrendering the weight of having to decide for oneself.

The Black Box Problem: Trust Without Understanding

AI's primary draw is its ability to perform tasks outside our minds – sifting through oceans of data at unprecedented speed. Stuck in the car in Marseille, this was, ultimately, why I opted to trust the app over my friend (a decision she interpreted as an affront). With access to all the data, surely the app had superior insight – or so I thought.

The fundamental problem is that AI is a opaque system. It produces answers, but without necessarily fostering human understanding. We cannot fully grasp the process behind its decisions – including its creators admit this. Nor can we check its logic against transparent standards. So when we follow AI's recommendation, we are not being led by logic. We are back in the domain of faith. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, trust the machine – that could be our 21st-century credo.

Using Without Losing: The Essential Challenge

AI can be a formidable ally for mankind in scientific pursuit. It can help inventing drugs, free us from tedious tasks, or handle taxes – duties that are repetitive and offer little satisfaction. 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 merely about efficiency – it was a practice of freedom and human emancipation.

Human thought is inherently messy and error-prone, but it forces us to argue, to question, to challenge concepts – and to recognize the boundaries of our own understanding. It fosters self-reliance, both individually and as a society. For Kant, the use of reason was never solely about information; it was about enabling people to become agents of their own lives, and to oppose control. It was about building a moral community grounded in the common foundation of rational discourse, rather than blind belief.

With all the advantages AI brings, the paramount challenge is this: how can we leverage its promise of advanced capability without eroding 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 outsource to the algorithm.