🔗 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 famous spot for fish soup. However, the digital guide on my phone commanded us to go forward. Weary and overheated, I followed the app's directive. Minutes later, we were stuck at a construction site.

A minor incident, maybe. But one that captures a central question of our era, where digital tools touches almost every aspect of our lives: who gets our trust to a greater degree – other people and our personal instincts, or the machine?

A Call for Intellectual Maturity and A Contemporary Backslide

The renowned German philosopher Immanuel Kant once defined the Enlightenment as "man's release from its self-imposed immaturity." This state, he argued, "is the incapacity to use one's own understanding without guidance from an external source." For centuries, that directing force for human thought was frequently the clergyman, the monarch, or the landowner – entities claiming to speak for divine will. To comprehend natural events like changing seasons, people looked for explanations in religion. In shaping the fabric of society, from economics to love, religious doctrine acted as the primary guide.

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

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

Now, 250 years later, one might wonder if we are quietly regressing into a state of dependency. An app suggesting a direction is merely the start. Artificial intelligence risks becoming our new "other" – a silent overseer that influences our choices and behaviors. We are in danger of ceding the historically earned courage to think independently – and this time, not to deities or rulers, but to computer programs.

The Rapid Rise and Subtle Dangers of AI Dependence

ChatGPT debuted a mere three years ago, and yet a global survey found that an overwhelming majority of respondents had engaged with artificial intelligence in the previous six months. Whether contemplating ending a relationship or choosing a candidate, individuals are increasingly turning to machines for counsel. Research suggests a significant portion of user prompts concern personal life matters. Even more intriguing than our use of AI for advice is what occurs when we allow it speak for us. Composition is now one of the most common uses for tools like ChatGPT, second only to practical requests. The late American author Joan Didion once remarked, “I write entirely to discover what I am thinking.” What transpires when we cease writing? Do we lose that path?

Worryingly, emerging research hints 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 rely on AI showed the least brain activity and had difficulty accurately recalling their own work. Maybe most troubling 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 … stay in perpetual nonage.”

Certainly, AI's appeal lies in its efficiency. It is fast, reduces effort and – importantly – offers a novel way to offload responsibility. 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 for the sake of the reassuring certainty of obedience. AI offers a digital avenue for relinquishing the burden of having to decide for oneself.

The Black Box Problem: Trust Without Understanding

AI's primary draw is its ability to accomplish things beyond our minds – sifting through vast datasets at lightning pace. Stuck in the car in Marseille, this was, after all, why I chose to believe the machine over my companion (a decision she took as an insult). With access to real-time information, certainly the app must know best – or so I believed.

The fundamental problem is that AI operates as a opaque system. It produces answers, but without necessarily deepening human understanding. We do not truly know the process behind its conclusions – including its programmers 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 returning to the domain of belief. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, side with the machine – that may become our 21st-century credo.

Harnessing Without Eroding: The Essential Challenge

AI can be a powerful tool for humanity in rational inquiry. It can aid in medical research, 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 advocate for enlightenment just so humans could assemble better furniture or have more leisure. Independent thought was not just about efficiency – it was a discipline of freedom and human self-determination.

Human thought is inherently messy and error-prone, but it forces us to argue, to question, to challenge concepts – and to recognize the limits of our own knowledge. It fosters confidence, both individually and as a society. For Kant, the use of reason was never only about acquiring knowledge; it was about enabling people to become agents of their own destinies, and to resist domination. It was about building a moral community based on the common foundation of reason and debate, rather than blind belief.

With all the undeniable benefits AI offers, the paramount challenge is this: how can we harness its promise of advanced capability without eroding human reasoning, the bedrock 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.