This past summer, I found myself navigating in congested traffic on the scorching streets of a southern French city. 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 commanded us to continue straight. Weary and in a stifling car, I heeded the algorithm's directive. Moments later, we were stuck at a roadwork site.
A minor incident, maybe. But one that encapsulates a central dilemma of our time, where technology touches almost every aspect of existence: who gets our trust more – other people and our personal instincts, or the machine?
A Call for Intellectual Maturity and Our Modern Relapse
The renowned German philosopher Immanuel Kant once defined the Enlightenment as "man's release from its self-imposed immaturity." This state, he wrote, "represents the inability to use one's own understanding without direction from an external source." For ages, that guiding "other" for human thought was often the priest, the king, or the feudal lord – figures purporting to channel divine will. To comprehend natural events like volcanic eruptions, people looked for explanations in religion. In shaping the social world, from commerce to matters of the heart, religious doctrine acted as the primary guide.
“Sapere aude!” or “Dare to use your own understanding!”
Kant maintained that humans had the capacity for reason. They simply lacked the confidence to use it. With revolutions in the 18th century, a new dawn arrived: reason would replace superstition, and the human mind, liberated from dogma, would become the driver of progress and a more ethical world.
Now, two and a half centuries later, one might question if we are slipping back into a form of intellectual immaturity. An app dictating a driving route is just one example. AI risks becoming our new "other" – a unseen guide that steers our choices and actions. We risk relinquishing the historically earned autonomy to reason for ourselves – and now, not to gods or kings, but to lines of code.
The Rapid Rise and Subtle Dangers of AI Dependence
ChatGPT debuted a mere three years ago, and yet a global survey indicated that an overwhelming majority of respondents had engaged with artificial intelligence in the preceding half-year. Whether deciding on ending a relationship or choosing a candidate, individuals are looking to algorithms for counsel. Research suggests a significant portion of user prompts relate to non-work topics. Even more intriguing than our use of AI for judgment is what happens when we let it speak for us. Writing is now among the top uses for tools like ChatGPT, just behind practical requests. The late American author Joan Didion once remarked, “I write purely to discover what I am thinking.” What occurs when we cease writing? Do we cease discovering?
Alarmingly, emerging research suggests the answer may be affirmative. A study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used electroencephalography to track the cognitive activity of participants who had access to AI, Google, or nothing. Those who could use AI showed the lowest cognitive engagement and had difficulty accurately recalling their own work. Maybe most concerning was that over time, individuals in the AI group grew increasingly reliant, copying large sections of text.
“Laziness and cowardice,” Kant wrote, “are the reasons why so great a proportion of men … stay in perpetual nonage.”
Certainly, AI's attraction lies in its efficiency. It is fast, minimizes work and – importantly – offers a new method to abdicate accountability. 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 give up personal freedom in exchange for the comforting security of obedience. AI offers 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 beyond human capability – analyzing vast datasets at unprecedented speed. Stuck in the car in Marseille, this was, after all, why I chose to believe the machine over my friend (a decision she took as an insult). With knowledge of real-time information, certainly the app had superior insight – or so I thought.
The fundamental problem is that AI operates as a black box. It generates knowledge, but not always fostering human comprehension. We do not truly know how AI reaches its decisions – including its creators admit this. Nor can we verify its reasoning against clear, objective criteria. So when we heed AI's advice, we are not being guided by reason. We are back in the realm of faith. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, trust the machine – that could be our future credo.
Harnessing Without Eroding: The Essential Challenge
AI can be a powerful tool for humanity in scientific pursuit. It can help medical research, free us from tedious tasks, or manage taxes – duties that are repetitive and offer little satisfaction. All to the good. 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 freedom and human emancipation.
Human thought is often chaotic and error-prone, but it compels us to debate, to doubt, to test ideas – and to acknowledge the boundaries of our own knowledge. It fosters self-reliance, both personally and collectively. For Kant, the exercise of reason was never solely about acquiring knowledge; it was about enabling people to become authors of their own lives, and to oppose domination. It was about creating a ethical society based on the shared principle of rational discourse, rather than blind belief.
With all the undeniable benefits AI brings, the key question remains: how can we harness its promise of superhuman intelligence without eroding human reasoning, the bedrock of the Enlightenment and of free societies themselves? That may be one of the defining questions of our century. It is a question we would do well not to outsource to the algorithm.
