🔗 Share this article

This recent season, I was caught in gridlocked traffic on the sweltering streets of a southern French city. At a crossing, my friend in the passenger seat suggested a right turn toward a famous spot for fish soup. Yet, the navigation app on my phone commanded us to go forward. Weary and in a stifling car, I followed the algorithm's advice. Minutes later, we were stuck at a construction site.

A seemingly trivial incident, perhaps. But one that captures a defining dilemma of our era, where technology permeates 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 famously described the Enlightenment as "humanity's emergence from its self-imposed nonage." This immaturity, he argued, "represents the inability to use one's personal reason without direction from another." For ages, that guiding "other" for human thought was frequently the clergyman, the monarch, or the feudal lord – figures purporting to speak for God's voice. To explain phenomena like volcanic eruptions, people looked for explanations in theology. In organizing the social world, from commerce to matters of the heart, faith served as the primary guide.

“Sapere aude!” or “Dare to use your own understanding!”

Kant argued that humans had the capacity for reason. They just didn't have the boldness to use it. With upheavals in the 18th century, a fresh era arrived: logic would replace superstition, and the intellect, liberated from authority, would become the driver of progress and a better world.

Now, 250 years later, one might question if we are quietly regressing into a form of dependency. An app dictating a direction is merely the start. AI threatens to become our new "other" – a unseen overseer that steers our choices and actions. We risk ceding the hard-won courage to think independently – and this time, not to deities or rulers, but to lines of code.

The Rapid Rise and Subtle Dangers of AI Dependence

ChatGPT debuted only in 2022, and already a global survey found that an vast number of respondents had used AI in the preceding half-year. Whether deciding on a breakup or selecting a vote, individuals are increasingly turning to algorithms for guidance. Research suggests a significant portion of user prompts concern non-work topics. Even more striking than our use of AI for advice is what occurs when we let it speak for us. Composition is now among the top uses for tools like ChatGPT, second only to everyday tasks. The celebrated American author Joan Didion famously said, “I write entirely to discover what I am thinking.” What occurs when we stop composing? Do we lose that path?

Worryingly, emerging research suggests the answer may be affirmative. A study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used electroencephalography to track the mental engagement of essay writers who had could use AI, traditional search engines, or no aids. Those who could rely on AI displayed the least cognitive engagement and had difficulty accurately recalling their own work. Perhaps most concerning was that over time, individuals in the AI group grew progressively lazier, pasting large sections of text.

“Inertia and fear,” Kant wrote, “are the reasons why so many of men … stay in lifelong immaturity.”

Of course, AI's attraction stems from its efficiency. It saves time, minimizes work and – importantly – offers a new method to offload responsibility. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm argued that the appeal of authoritarianism could be partly explained by a human tendency to surrender personal freedom in for the sake of the comforting security of obedience. AI offers a digital method of relinquishing the weight of having to decide for oneself.

The Black Box Problem: Faith Over Reason

AI's greatest allure is its capacity to perform tasks outside human capability – sifting through oceans of data at lightning pace. Sitting in the car in Marseille, this was, ultimately, why I chose to trust the app over my companion (a choice she took as an affront). With access to all the data, surely the algorithm must know best – or so I believed.

The fundamental problem is that AI is a black box. It produces answers, but without necessarily deepening human comprehension. We do not truly know the process behind its conclusions – even its creators acknowledge the opacity. Nor can we verify its logic against transparent standards. So when we heed AI's advice, 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 future guiding principle.

Using Without Losing: The Essential Challenge

AI can be a formidable ally for humanity in scientific pursuit. It can aid in inventing drugs, liberate us from tedious tasks, or manage taxes – duties that demand little thought and offer little satisfaction. All to the good. But Kant and his contemporaries did not advocate for enlightenment just so humans could optimize chores or have extra free time. Independent thought was not merely 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 acknowledge the boundaries of our own knowledge. It builds confidence, both individually and as a society. For Kant, the exercise of reason was never only about information; it was about empowering 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 reason and debate, rather than blind belief.

With all the advantages AI offers, the paramount challenge is this: how can we harness its potential of superhuman intelligence without eroding human rationality, the cornerstone of the Enlightenment and of free societies itself? That may be one of the defining questions of our time. It is a question we must strive not to outsource to the machine.