🔗 Share this article

This recent season, I was caught in congested traffic on the scorching streets of a southern French city. At a crossing, my companion in the passenger seat suggested a right turn toward a renowned spot for bouillabaisse. Yet, the navigation app on my phone instructed us to continue straight. Weary and overheated, I followed the algorithm's directive. Minutes later, we were stuck at a construction site.

A seemingly trivial incident, maybe. But one that captures a defining dilemma of our era, where digital tools permeates almost every aspect of our lives: who gets our trust more – other people and our own intuition, or the algorithm?

The Enlightenment's Promise and Our Modern Relapse

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 own understanding without guidance from another." For centuries, that guiding "other" for human thought was often the priest, the king, or the landowner – entities purporting to channel divine will. To explain natural events like volcanic eruptions, people looked for explanations in theology. In organizing the social world, from economics to matters of the heart, religious doctrine served as the primary guide.

“Sapere aude!” or “Have courage to use your own understanding!”

Kant argued that humans had the ability to think rationally. They simply lacked the boldness to employ it. With upheavals in America and France, a new dawn arrived: reason would replace superstition, and the human mind, liberated from dogma, would become the engine of advancement and a better world.

Today, 250 years later, one might wonder if we are slipping back into a state of dependency. An app suggesting a driving route is just one example. Artificial intelligence threatens to become our new "other" – a unseen guide that steers our decisions and behaviors. We risk ceding the hard-won courage to reason for ourselves – and now, not to deities or rulers, but to computer programs.

The Swift Adoption and Subtle Dangers of AI Dependence

ChatGPT debuted a mere three years ago, and already a global survey found that an vast number of respondents had engaged with artificial intelligence in the preceding half-year. Whether contemplating a breakup or choosing a candidate, individuals are increasingly turning to machines for counsel. Research suggests a significant portion of user prompts relate to personal life matters. Even more striking than our use of AI for advice is what happens when we allow it speak for us. Writing is now among the most common uses for generative AI, second only to practical requests. The late American author Joan Didion famously said, “I write entirely to find out what I am thinking.” What transpires when we stop composing? Do we lose that path?

Alarmingly, some evidence suggests the answer 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, Google, or nothing. Those who could rely on AI displayed the lowest cognitive engagement and had difficulty quoting their own work. Maybe most troubling was that over time, participants in the AI group became progressively lazier, pasting entire blocks of text.

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

Certainly, AI's attraction stems from its convenience. It is fast, minimizes work and – importantly – offers a new method to offload accountability. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm proposed that the rise of fascism could be understood by a human tendency to surrender autonomy in exchange for the comforting security of subordination. AI presents a digital method of relinquishing the burden of having to decide for oneself.

The Opacity Dilemma: Trust Without Understanding

AI's greatest allure is its capacity to accomplish things beyond our minds – sifting through oceans of data at lightning pace. Sitting in the car in Marseille, this was, after all, why I chose to trust the machine over my companion (a choice she interpreted as an insult). With knowledge of real-time information, surely the algorithm had superior insight – or so I believed.

The fundamental problem is that AI operates as a black box. It produces knowledge, but not always deepening human understanding. We do not truly know how AI reaches its conclusions – even its creators acknowledge the opacity. Nor can we check 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 realm of belief. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, trust the machine – that could be our 21st-century credo.

Harnessing Without Eroding: The Essential Challenge

AI can be a formidable ally for humanity in scientific pursuit. It can aid in inventing drugs, free us from "bullshit jobs", or manage taxes – duties that demand little thought and are unfulfilling. This is beneficial. But Kant and his peers did not champion reason over faith just so humans could assemble better furniture or have more leisure. Independent thought was not merely about productivity – it was a practice of liberty and human self-determination.

Human thought is often chaotic and error-prone, but it compels us to argue, to doubt, to challenge concepts – 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 only about information; it was about enabling people to become agents of their own lives, and to oppose domination. 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 key question remains: how can we harness its potential of superhuman intelligence without eroding 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 machine.