🔗 Share this article

This recent season, I was caught in congested traffic on the sweltering streets of a southern French city. At an intersection, my companion in the front seat suggested a right turn toward a renowned spot for bouillabaisse. Yet, the digital guide on my phone commanded us to go forward. Weary and overheated, I heeded the app's directive. Minutes later, we were stranded at a construction site.

A minor incident, maybe. But one that encapsulates a defining question of our era, where technology permeates nearly every facet of existence: who gets our trust to a greater degree – fellow humans and our own intuition, or the machine?

The Enlightenment's Promise and A Contemporary Backslide

The influential German philosopher Immanuel Kant once defined the Enlightenment as "man's release from its self-inflicted nonage." This state, he wrote, "represents the incapacity to use one's own understanding without direction from an external source." For ages, that guiding "other" for society was frequently the clergyman, the monarch, or the feudal lord – figures purporting to speak for divine will. To explain natural events like volcanic eruptions, people looked for explanations in religion. In shaping the social world, from commerce to matters of the heart, faith acted as the primary guide.

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

Kant maintained that humans always possessed the ability to think rationally. They just didn't have the boldness to employ it. With upheavals in the 18th century, a fresh era arrived: logic would supplant blind faith, and the intellect, liberated from authority, would become the driver of advancement and a more ethical world.

Today, 250 years later, one might question if we are slipping back into a state of intellectual immaturity. An app suggesting a direction is just one example. Artificial intelligence threatens to become our new "other" – a unseen overseer that influences our choices and actions. We are in danger of ceding the historically earned courage to reason for ourselves – and this time, not to deities or rulers, but to lines of code.

The Swift Adoption and Subtle Dangers of Algorithmic Reliance

ChatGPT debuted a mere three years ago, and already a recent study found that an vast number of people had engaged with artificial intelligence in the preceding half-year. Whether contemplating ending a relationship or selecting a vote, individuals are looking to algorithms for guidance. Data suggests a large majority of user prompts relate to personal life matters. Even more intriguing than our reliance on AI for judgment is what occurs when we let it speak for us. Composition is now among the top uses for tools like ChatGPT, just behind everyday tasks. The celebrated American author Joan Didion once remarked, “I write purely to find out what I am thinking.” What occurs when we cease writing? Do we cease discovering?

Worryingly, some evidence hints the answer may be yes. A study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used electroencephalography to track the mental engagement of participants who had access to AI, traditional search engines, or no aids. Those who could use AI displayed the lowest brain activity and had trouble quoting their own work. Maybe most troubling was that after a few months, participants in the AI group became progressively lazier, copying entire blocks of text.

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

Of course, AI's appeal lies in its efficiency. It saves time, minimizes work and – critically – offers a novel way to abdicate responsibility. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm argued that the rise of fascism could be understood by a human tendency to surrender autonomy in exchange for the comforting security of obedience. AI presents a modern avenue for relinquishing the burden of having to think and choose.

The Opacity Dilemma: Trust Without Understanding

AI's primary draw is its capacity to accomplish things outside our minds – analyzing oceans of data at lightning pace. Sitting in the car in Marseille, this was, ultimately, why I chose to believe the app over my companion (a decision she interpreted as an affront). With knowledge of real-time information, certainly the algorithm must know best – or so I thought.

The core issue is that AI operates as a black box. It produces knowledge, but not always fostering human understanding. We cannot fully grasp the process behind its decisions – including 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 guided by reason. We are back in the realm of belief. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, side with the machine – that could be our 21st-century credo.

Harnessing Without Eroding: The Critical Balance

AI can be a powerful tool for humanity in scientific pursuit. It can aid in medical research, free us from "bullshit jobs", or handle taxes – duties that demand little thought and offer little satisfaction. All to the good. But Kant and his peers did not advocate for enlightenment just so humans could optimize chores or have extra free time. Independent thought was not merely about efficiency – it was a practice of liberty and human self-determination.

Human thought is inherently messy and fallible, but it forces us to debate, to doubt, to challenge concepts – and to acknowledge the boundaries of our own understanding. It builds self-reliance, both individually and as a society. For Kant, the use of reason was never solely about information; it was about enabling people to become authors of their own destinies, and to oppose control. It was about building a moral community based on the shared principle of rational discourse, rather than unquestioning acceptance.

With all the advantages AI brings, the key question remains: how can we harness its promise of superhuman intelligence without undermining human rationality, the bedrock of the Enlightenment and of liberal democracy themselves? That may be one of the central dilemmas of our time. It is a question we must strive not to delegate to the machine.