🔗 Share this article

This recent season, I found myself navigating in gridlocked traffic on the sweltering streets of a southern French city. At an intersection, my companion in the front seat advised a right turn toward a famous spot for bouillabaisse. However, the digital guide on my phone commanded us to continue straight. Fatigued and overheated, I heeded the app's advice. Minutes later, we were stranded at a construction site.

A seemingly trivial incident, perhaps. But one that captures a defining dilemma of our time, where digital tools touches almost every aspect of existence: who gets our trust to a greater degree – fellow humans and our own intuition, or the algorithm?

A Call for Intellectual Maturity and A Contemporary Backslide

The renowned German philosopher Immanuel Kant once defined the Enlightenment as "man's release from its self-imposed nonage." This immaturity, he wrote, "represents the inability to use one's personal reason without direction from an external source." For ages, that guiding "other" for human thought was frequently the clergyman, the king, or the feudal lord – figures claiming to channel God's voice. To comprehend natural events like volcanic eruptions, people looked for explanations in religion. In organizing 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 own understanding!”

Kant maintained that humans had the capacity for reason. They simply lacked the confidence to employ it. With revolutions in America and France, a new dawn arrived: logic would supplant blind faith, and the human mind, liberated from dogma, would become the driver of progress and a more ethical world.

Today, two and a half centuries later, one might question if we are quietly regressing into a form of intellectual immaturity. An app suggesting a driving route is just one example. AI threatens to become our new "other" – a silent overseer that influences our choices and behaviors. We risk relinquishing the historically earned courage to think independently – and this time, not to gods or kings, but to computer programs.

The Rapid Rise and Subtle Dangers of AI Dependence

ChatGPT debuted a mere three years ago, and already a recent study indicated that an overwhelming majority of people had engaged with artificial intelligence in the previous six months. Whether deciding on a breakup or choosing a candidate, individuals are increasingly turning to algorithms for guidance. Research suggests a large majority of user queries concern personal life matters. Even more intriguing than our use of AI for advice is what happens when we let it express for us. Composition is now among the most common uses for generative AI, just behind everyday tasks. The late American author Joan Didion famously said, “I write entirely to discover what I am thinking.” What transpires when we cease writing? Do we lose that path?

Worryingly, some evidence hints the outcome may be yes. A study conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used brain monitoring to observe the mental engagement of essay writers who had could use AI, Google, or nothing. Those who could rely on AI showed the lowest cognitive engagement and had difficulty quoting their own work. Perhaps most concerning was that over time, participants in the AI group became progressively lazier, copying entire blocks of text.

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

Of course, AI's appeal lies in its convenience. It is fast, minimizes work and – critically – offers a novel way to offload responsibility. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm argued that the appeal of authoritarianism could be understood by a preference to surrender personal freedom in exchange for the reassuring certainty of obedience. AI offers a modern avenue for relinquishing the weight of having to think and choose.

The Black Box Problem: Trust Without Understanding

AI's greatest allure is its capacity to accomplish things beyond our minds – sifting through vast datasets at lightning pace. Stuck in the car in Marseille, this was, after all, why I opted to trust the machine over my friend (a choice she took as an affront). With access to all the data, surely the algorithm had superior insight – or so I believed.

The core issue is that AI is a black box. It generates knowledge, but not always deepening human comprehension. We do not truly know the process behind its conclusions – including its programmers admit this. Nor can we verify its logic against clear, objective criteria. So when we heed AI's advice, we are not being led by logic. We are returning to the realm of belief. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, side with the machine – that may become our 21st-century credo.

Harnessing Without Eroding: The Essential Challenge

AI can be a formidable ally for humanity in rational inquiry. It can aid in medical research, free 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. Independent thought was not merely about efficiency – it was a discipline of freedom and human self-determination.

Human thought is often chaotic and error-prone, but it forces us to argue, to doubt, to test ideas – and to acknowledge the boundaries of our own understanding. It fosters self-reliance, both personally and as a society. For Kant, the use of reason was never solely about acquiring knowledge; it was about empowering people to become authors of their own lives, and to resist domination. It was about creating a ethical society grounded in the common foundation of reason and debate, rather than blind belief.

With all the advantages AI offers, the key question remains: how can we harness its promise of superhuman intelligence without eroding human rationality, the cornerstone of the Enlightenment and of free societies themselves? That is likely one of the defining questions of our century. It is a question we must strive not to delegate to the machine.