🔗 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 passenger seat suggested a right turn toward a renowned spot for bouillabaisse. However, the digital guide on my phone commanded us to continue straight. Weary and overheated, I followed the app's directive. Minutes later, we were stuck at a construction site.

A seemingly trivial event, maybe. But one that captures a central question of our time, where digital tools touches almost every aspect of existence: whom do we trust more – other people and our own intuition, or the machine?

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-inflicted immaturity." This immaturity, he argued, "is the incapacity to use one's personal reason without direction from an external source." For ages, that directing force for society was frequently the priest, the monarch, or the landowner – figures purporting to channel God's voice. To explain natural events like changing seasons, people sought answers in theology. In shaping the fabric of society, from economics to matters of the heart, religious doctrine acted as the primary guide.

“Sapere aude!” or “Dare to use your reason!”

Kant argued that humans had the ability to think rationally. They just didn't have the boldness to use it. With upheavals in America and France, a fresh era emerged: reason would supplant superstition, and the human mind, freed from authority, would become the engine of progress and a better world.

Today, two and a half centuries later, one might wonder if we are slipping back into a state of intellectual immaturity. An app dictating a driving route is just one example. AI threatens to become our new "other" – a unseen guide that steers our choices and actions. We are in danger of ceding the hard-won autonomy to think independently – and this time, 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 already a recent study 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 increasingly turning to algorithms for guidance. Data suggests a significant portion of user prompts relate to personal life matters. Even more striking than our reliance on AI for judgment is what occurs when we allow it express for us. Writing is now among the top uses for generative AI, just behind practical requests. The celebrated American author Joan Didion once remarked, “I write entirely to find out what I am thinking.” What occurs when we cease writing? Do we lose that path?

Alarmingly, emerging research hints the outcome may be yes. A study conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used electroencephalography to observe the mental engagement of participants who had access to AI, traditional search engines, or no aids. Those who could rely on AI showed the least cognitive engagement and had trouble accurately recalling their own work. Perhaps most concerning was that over time, individuals 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 perpetual nonage.”

Of course, AI's attraction lies in its efficiency. It is fast, minimizes work and – importantly – offers a new method to offload responsibility. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm proposed that the rise of fascism could be understood by a preference to give up autonomy in for the sake of the comforting security of obedience. AI presents a digital method of relinquishing the burden of having to think and choose.

The Black Box Problem: Faith Over Reason

AI's primary draw is its capacity to accomplish things outside our minds – sifting through oceans of data at lightning pace. Sitting in the car in Marseille, this was, after all, why I opted to believe the app over my companion (a choice she interpreted as an insult). With knowledge of all the data, surely the app had superior insight – or so I thought.

The fundamental problem is that AI is a black box. It produces knowledge, but without necessarily deepening human comprehension. We cannot fully grasp the process behind its conclusions – even its programmers acknowledge the opacity. Nor can we verify its reasoning against clear, objective criteria. So when we follow AI's advice, we are not being guided by reason. We are returning to the realm of belief. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, side with the machine – that could be our future credo.

Using Without Losing: The Critical Balance

AI can be a powerful tool for humanity in rational inquiry. It can aid in inventing drugs, liberate us from tedious tasks, or handle administrative chores – duties that are repetitive and are unfulfilling. This is beneficial. But Kant and his contemporaries did not champion enlightenment just so humans could assemble better furniture or have extra free time. Independent thought was not just about efficiency – it was a practice of liberty and human self-determination.

Human thought is often chaotic and error-prone, but it forces us to debate, to doubt, to test ideas – and to recognize the limits of our own understanding. It fosters confidence, both personally and collectively. For Kant, the exercise of reason was never solely about acquiring knowledge; it was about enabling people to become authors of their own destinies, and to resist domination. It was about creating a moral community based on the shared principle of rational discourse, rather than unquestioning acceptance.

With all the advantages AI brings, the paramount challenge is this: how can we leverage its potential of superhuman intelligence without undermining human rationality, the bedrock of the Enlightenment and of liberal democracy themselves? That is likely one of the defining questions of our century. It is a question we must strive not to outsource to the machine.