🔗 Share this article

This recent season, I found myself navigating in gridlocked traffic on the sweltering streets of Marseille. At an intersection, my friend in the passenger seat suggested a right turn toward a famous spot for bouillabaisse. However, the navigation app on my phone commanded us to continue straight. Fatigued and overheated, I heeded the app's directive. Moments later, we were stranded at a construction site.

A minor event, perhaps. But one that captures a central question of our era, where digital tools permeates nearly every facet of our lives: whom do we 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 once defined the Enlightenment as "humanity's emergence from its self-inflicted nonage." This state, he wrote, "represents the inability to use one's own understanding without direction from an external source." For centuries, that directing force for society was frequently the priest, the monarch, or the landowner – entities claiming to speak for divine will. To comprehend natural events like changing seasons, people sought answers in religion. In organizing the fabric of society, from commerce to love, religious doctrine served as the primary guide.

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

Kant argued that humans had the capacity for reason. They simply lacked the confidence to employ it. With revolutions in the 18th century, a new dawn arrived: reason would supplant blind faith, and the human mind, liberated from authority, would become the engine of progress 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 suggesting a driving route is just one example. Artificial intelligence threatens to become our new "other" – a silent overseer that influences our decisions and behaviors. We are in danger of relinquishing the historically earned autonomy 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 was launched only in 2022, and yet a global survey found that an vast number of respondents had engaged with artificial intelligence in the preceding half-year. 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 non-work topics. Even more striking than our reliance on AI for judgment is what happens when we let it speak for us. Writing is now among the most common uses for generative AI, just behind everyday tasks. The celebrated American author Joan Didion once remarked, “I write entirely to find out what I am thinking.” What transpires when we cease writing? Do we cease discovering?

Worryingly, some evidence suggests the outcome may be yes. A study conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used brain monitoring to track the mental engagement of participants who had could use AI, Google, or nothing. Those who could use AI showed the lowest cognitive engagement and had trouble quoting their own work. Perhaps most troubling was that after a few months, participants in the AI group grew increasingly reliant, copying large sections of text.

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

Of course, AI's attraction stems from its convenience. It is fast, reduces effort and – critically – offers a new method to offload accountability. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm argued that the appeal of authoritarianism could be understood by a human tendency to surrender autonomy in exchange for the comforting security of obedience. AI presents a digital avenue for relinquishing the burden of having to think and choose.

The Opacity Dilemma: Faith Over Reason

AI's primary draw is its ability to perform tasks outside human capability – analyzing oceans of data at lightning pace. Stuck 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 knowledge of all the data, surely the app must know best – or so I believed.

The fundamental problem is that AI is a black box. It produces answers, but without necessarily fostering human comprehension. We cannot fully grasp the process behind its decisions – including its programmers acknowledge the opacity. Nor can we verify its logic against clear, objective criteria. So when we follow AI's advice, we are not being led by logic. We are back in the domain of belief. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, side with the machine – that could be our future guiding principle.

Harnessing Without Eroding: The Critical Balance

AI can be a formidable ally for humanity in rational inquiry. It can help inventing drugs, free us from tedious tasks, or manage administrative chores – duties that are repetitive and are unfulfilling. This is beneficial. But Kant and his peers did not champion enlightenment just so humans could optimize chores or have more leisure. Critical thinking was not merely about productivity – it was a discipline of freedom and human self-determination.

Human thought is inherently messy and fallible, but it compels us to argue, to question, to challenge concepts – and to acknowledge the limits of our own knowledge. It fosters confidence, both personally and as a society. For Kant, the exercise of reason was never solely about information; it was about empowering 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 rational discourse, rather than blind belief.

With all the undeniable benefits AI offers, the paramount challenge is this: how can we leverage its potential of superhuman intelligence without undermining human reasoning, the cornerstone of the Enlightenment and of liberal democracy themselves? That may be one of the central dilemmas of our century. It is a question we must strive not to outsource to the algorithm.