This recent season, I found myself navigating in congested traffic on the scorching streets of Marseille. At a crossing, my friend in the front seat advised a right turn toward a famous spot for fish soup. Yet, the navigation app on my phone instructed us to continue straight. Weary and overheated, I followed the algorithm's advice. Moments later, we were stuck at a roadwork site.
A seemingly trivial event, perhaps. But one that encapsulates a central dilemma of our time, where digital tools touches nearly every facet of existence: who gets our trust more – fellow humans and our personal instincts, or the algorithm?
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 immaturity, he argued, "is the inability to use one's own understanding without guidance from an external source." For centuries, that guiding "other" for society was frequently the clergyman, the king, or the feudal lord – figures purporting to channel God's voice. To comprehend phenomena like volcanic eruptions, people looked for explanations in religion. In shaping the fabric of society, from commerce to love, religious doctrine served as the main compass.
“Sapere aude!” or “Dare to use your reason!”
Kant argued that humans had the ability to think rationally. They simply lacked the confidence to use it. With upheavals in America and France, a new dawn emerged: logic would replace superstition, and the intellect, freed 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 quietly regressing into a state of dependency. An app suggesting a direction is just one example. Artificial intelligence threatens to become our contemporary authority – a silent overseer that influences our choices and behaviors. We are in danger of relinquishing 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 AI Dependence
ChatGPT was launched only in 2022, and already a global survey found that an overwhelming majority of people had engaged with artificial intelligence in the previous six months. Whether contemplating ending a relationship or choosing a candidate, individuals are looking to algorithms for guidance. Research suggests a significant portion of user queries concern non-work topics. Even more striking than our reliance on AI for judgment is what occurs when we allow it express for us. Composition is now one of the most common uses for generative AI, just behind practical requests. The late American author Joan Didion famously said, “I write entirely to discover what I am thinking.” What transpires when we stop composing? Do we lose that path?
Alarmingly, emerging research suggests the outcome may be affirmative. A study conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used electroencephalography to observe the cognitive activity of participants who had access to AI, Google, or nothing. Those who could use AI displayed the lowest cognitive engagement and had trouble quoting their own work. Perhaps most troubling was that over time, participants in the AI group grew progressively lazier, copying entire blocks of text.
“Inertia and fear,” Kant wrote, “are the reasons why so great a proportion of men … stay in lifelong immaturity.”
Certainly, AI's appeal lies in its convenience. It is fast, reduces effort and – importantly – offers a new method to offload accountability. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm argued that the rise of fascism could be partly explained by a human tendency to give up personal freedom in exchange for the reassuring certainty of subordination. AI presents a modern avenue for relinquishing the burden of having to decide for oneself.
The Opacity Dilemma: Faith Over Reason
AI's primary draw is its capacity to accomplish things outside human capability – analyzing oceans of data at lightning pace. Stuck in the car in Marseille, this was, after all, why I opted to trust the machine over my friend (a decision she interpreted as an insult). With knowledge of all the data, certainly the app had superior insight – or so I believed.
The core issue is that AI is a opaque system. It produces knowledge, but without necessarily deepening human comprehension. We do not truly know how AI reaches its decisions – even its creators acknowledge the opacity. Nor can we check its reasoning against clear, objective criteria. So when we heed 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 21st-century credo.
Harnessing Without Eroding: The Critical Balance
AI can be a formidable ally for mankind in scientific pursuit. It can aid in inventing drugs, liberate us from "bullshit jobs", or handle taxes – duties that are repetitive and are unfulfilling. All to the good. But Kant and his peers did not champion enlightenment just so humans could assemble better furniture or have more leisure. Critical thinking was not just about productivity – it was a practice of freedom and human self-determination.
Human thought is often chaotic and fallible, but it forces us to argue, to question, to challenge concepts – and to recognize the limits of our own understanding. It builds confidence, both individually and collectively. For Kant, the exercise of reason was never solely about acquiring knowledge; it was about enabling people to become agents of their own lives, and to resist domination. It was about building a ethical society grounded in the shared principle of reason and debate, rather than blind belief.
With all the advantages AI offers, the key question is this: how can we leverage its promise of superhuman intelligence without eroding human reasoning, the bedrock of the Enlightenment and of liberal democracy itself? That is likely one of the defining questions of our century. It is a question we must strive not to outsource to the machine.
