🔗 Share this article

This past summer, I was caught in congested traffic on the sweltering streets of Marseille. At a crossing, my companion in the passenger seat suggested a right turn toward a famous spot for bouillabaisse. Yet, the digital guide on my phone instructed us to continue straight. Fatigued and overheated, I followed the app's directive. Minutes later, we were stranded at a construction site.

A minor event, perhaps. But one that encapsulates a defining dilemma of our time, where technology permeates nearly every facet of existence: who gets our trust more – other people and our personal instincts, or the algorithm?

The Enlightenment's Promise and Our Modern Relapse

The influential German philosopher Immanuel Kant once defined the Enlightenment as "humanity's emergence from its self-imposed immaturity." This state, he argued, "is the inability to use one's own understanding without guidance from another." For ages, that directing force for human thought was often the clergyman, the king, or the feudal lord – figures claiming to channel God's voice. To comprehend phenomena like volcanic eruptions, people looked for explanations in religion. In organizing the social world, from commerce to love, religious doctrine acted as the main compass.

“Sapere aude!” or “Dare to use your own understanding!”

Kant argued that humans always possessed the capacity for reason. They just didn't have the confidence to use it. With revolutions in the 18th century, a new dawn emerged: reason would replace blind faith, and the human mind, freed from authority, would become the driver of progress and a more ethical world.

Now, 250 years later, one might wonder if we are slipping back into a state of intellectual immaturity. An app dictating a direction is merely the start. Artificial intelligence threatens to become our new "other" – a unseen guide that steers our decisions and actions. We risk ceding the hard-won autonomy to think independently – and this time, not to deities or rulers, but to lines of code.

The Rapid Rise and Hidden Risks of AI Dependence

ChatGPT was launched only in 2022, and already a recent study indicated that an overwhelming majority of respondents had used AI in the preceding half-year. Whether contemplating a breakup or selecting a vote, individuals are increasingly turning to algorithms for guidance. Data suggests a large majority of user prompts concern non-work topics. Even more striking than our use of AI for advice is what occurs when we let it speak for us. Composition is now among 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 find out what I am thinking.” What occurs when we stop composing? Do we cease discovering?

Worryingly, emerging research suggests the outcome may be affirmative. A study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used electroencephalography to observe the cognitive activity of participants who had access to AI, traditional search engines, or nothing. Those who could rely on AI displayed the lowest cognitive engagement and had trouble accurately recalling their own work. Maybe most concerning was that over time, individuals in the AI group became increasingly reliant, pasting entire blocks of text.

“Laziness and cowardice,” Kant wrote, “are the reasons why so great a proportion of men … stay in perpetual nonage.”

Of course, AI's attraction lies in its convenience. It saves time, reduces effort and – critically – offers a new method to abdicate responsibility. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm proposed that the appeal of authoritarianism could be understood by a human tendency to surrender autonomy in for the sake of the comforting security of subordination. AI offers a modern avenue for surrendering the weight of having to decide for oneself.

The Opacity Dilemma: Trust Without Understanding

AI's primary draw is its capacity to perform tasks outside our minds – sifting through vast datasets at lightning pace. Stuck in the car in Marseille, this was, ultimately, why I chose to trust the machine over my friend (a choice she took as an affront). With access to real-time information, certainly the app must know best – or so I thought.

The fundamental problem is that AI operates as a black box. It produces answers, but without necessarily fostering human comprehension. We cannot fully grasp the process behind its decisions – even its programmers admit this. Nor can we verify its reasoning against transparent standards. So when we follow AI's advice, we are not being guided by reason. We are returning to the realm of faith. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, trust the machine – that may become our future guiding principle.

Using Without Losing: The Critical Balance

AI can be a formidable ally for humanity in scientific pursuit. It can aid in inventing drugs, free us from "bullshit jobs", or manage administrative chores – duties that are repetitive and offer little satisfaction. This is beneficial. But Kant and his peers did not advocate for reason over faith just so humans could optimize chores or have extra free time. Critical thinking was not just about productivity – it was a discipline 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 acknowledge the limits of our own understanding. It fosters self-reliance, both individually and collectively. For Kant, the exercise of reason was never only about acquiring knowledge; it was about enabling people to become authors of their own destinies, and to resist control. It was about building a ethical society based on the common foundation of rational discourse, rather than blind belief.

With all the advantages AI offers, the key question is this: how can we harness its potential of superhuman intelligence without undermining human rationality, the bedrock of the Enlightenment and of free societies itself? That may be one of the central dilemmas of our time. It is a question we would do well not to delegate to the machine.