🔗 Share this article

This recent season, I was caught in gridlocked traffic on the sweltering streets of Marseille. At a crossing, my friend in the front seat suggested a right turn toward a renowned spot for fish soup. Yet, the digital guide on my phone instructed us to continue straight. Fatigued and in a stifling car, I followed the app's directive. Moments later, we were stranded at a construction site.

A minor incident, perhaps. But one that captures a defining question of our era, where technology permeates almost every aspect of our lives: whom do we trust to a greater degree – other people and our own intuition, or the algorithm?

The Enlightenment's Promise and A Contemporary Backslide

The renowned German philosopher Immanuel Kant once defined the Enlightenment as "humanity's emergence from its self-inflicted immaturity." This state, he argued, "is the inability to use one's own understanding without guidance from an external source." For centuries, that guiding "other" for human thought was often the clergyman, the monarch, or the landowner – figures claiming to speak for divine will. To comprehend phenomena like changing seasons, people looked for explanations in religion. In shaping the social world, from commerce to matters of the heart, religious doctrine served as the primary guide.

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

Kant maintained that humans had the capacity for reason. They just didn't have the confidence to employ it. With revolutions in America and France, a fresh era arrived: logic would replace superstition, and the human mind, freed 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 dictating a direction is merely the start. Artificial intelligence threatens to become our contemporary authority – a silent guide that influences our decisions and actions. We risk ceding the hard-won autonomy to reason for ourselves – and this time, not to gods or kings, but to computer programs.

The Rapid Rise and Subtle Dangers of Algorithmic Reliance

ChatGPT debuted a mere three years ago, and yet a recent study indicated that an vast number of respondents had engaged with artificial intelligence in the previous six months. Whether contemplating a breakup or selecting a vote, individuals are looking to machines for guidance. Research suggests a large majority of user queries concern non-work topics. Even more intriguing than our reliance on AI for judgment is what occurs when we allow it express for us. Writing is now one of the most common uses for tools like ChatGPT, second only to practical requests. The celebrated American author Joan Didion famously said, “I write entirely to discover what I am thinking.” What occurs when we stop composing? Do we cease discovering?

Worryingly, some evidence suggests the outcome may be affirmative. A study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used brain monitoring to track the cognitive activity of participants who had access to AI, traditional search engines, or nothing. Those who could use AI displayed the least brain activity and had trouble accurately recalling their own work. Maybe most concerning was that over time, participants in the AI group became increasingly reliant, copying large sections of text.

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

Of course, AI's attraction stems from its convenience. It is fast, 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 preference to surrender personal freedom in for the sake of the comforting security of obedience. AI presents a modern method of relinquishing the burden of having to decide for oneself.

The Opacity Dilemma: Trust Without Understanding

AI's greatest allure is its ability to perform tasks outside our minds – sifting through oceans of data at unprecedented speed. Sitting in the car in Marseille, this was, after all, why I chose to trust the machine over my companion (a choice she took as an insult). With knowledge of all the data, certainly the app must know best – or so I thought.

The core issue is that AI operates as a black box. It generates knowledge, but without necessarily deepening human comprehension. We do not truly know the process behind its decisions – even its programmers acknowledge the opacity. Nor can we verify its reasoning against clear, objective criteria. So when we heed AI's recommendation, 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 may become our 21st-century guiding principle.

Using Without Losing: The Essential Challenge

AI can be a formidable ally for mankind in scientific pursuit. It can aid in inventing drugs, free us from "bullshit jobs", or manage administrative chores – duties that demand little thought and offer little satisfaction. This is beneficial. But Kant and his contemporaries did not champion enlightenment just so humans could optimize chores or have more leisure. Critical thinking was not just about productivity – it was a practice of liberty and human emancipation.

Human thought is often chaotic and fallible, but it compels us to debate, to question, to challenge concepts – and to recognize the limits of our own knowledge. It fosters self-reliance, both personally and as a society. For Kant, the use of reason was never solely about information; it was about empowering people to become agents of their own destinies, and to oppose domination. It was about building a moral community based on the shared principle of reason and debate, rather than unquestioning acceptance.

With all the undeniable benefits AI offers, the key question remains: how can we leverage its promise of superhuman intelligence without undermining 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 would do well not to outsource to the algorithm.