This past summer, I found myself navigating in gridlocked traffic on the scorching streets of a southern French city. At an intersection, my companion in the passenger seat suggested a right turn toward a renowned spot for bouillabaisse. However, the navigation app on my phone instructed us to go forward. Fatigued and in a stifling car, I heeded the algorithm's directive. Minutes later, we were stranded at a roadwork site.
A minor incident, perhaps. But one that encapsulates a central question of our time, where technology touches nearly every facet of existence: who gets our trust to a greater degree – other people and our own intuition, or the algorithm?
The influential German philosopher Immanuel Kant once defined the Enlightenment as "humanity's emergence from its self-inflicted immaturity." This immaturity, he wrote, "represents the inability to use one's own understanding without direction from another." For ages, that guiding "other" for society was frequently the priest, the monarch, or the feudal lord – figures claiming to channel God's voice. To explain natural events like changing seasons, people looked for explanations in religion. In organizing the fabric of society, from commerce to matters of the heart, faith acted as the primary guide.
“Sapere aude!” or “Have courage to use your reason!”
Kant argued that humans had the ability to think rationally. They just didn't have the confidence to use it. With revolutions in America and France, a new dawn emerged: reason would supplant blind faith, and the intellect, liberated from dogma, would become the driver of advancement and a more ethical world.
Today, 250 years later, one might wonder if we are quietly regressing into a form of dependency. An app dictating a direction is merely the start. AI threatens to become our new "other" – a unseen guide that influences our choices and behaviors. We are in danger of relinquishing the hard-won courage to think independently – and now, not to gods or kings, but to lines of code.
ChatGPT was launched a mere three years ago, and already a recent study found that an overwhelming majority of respondents had used AI in the preceding half-year. Whether contemplating ending a relationship or choosing a candidate, individuals are increasingly turning to machines for counsel. Research suggests a large majority of user prompts relate to non-work topics. Even more intriguing than our use of AI for advice is what happens when we allow it express for us. Composition is now one of the most common uses for tools like ChatGPT, just behind everyday tasks. The late American author Joan Didion famously said, “I write entirely to discover what I am thinking.” What transpires when we cease writing? Do we cease discovering?
Worryingly, emerging research hints the outcome may be yes. A study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used electroencephalography to track the cognitive activity of essay writers who had access to AI, Google, or no aids. Those who could use AI showed the least cognitive engagement and had difficulty quoting their own work. Maybe most troubling was that over time, individuals in the AI group became progressively lazier, copying large sections of text.
“Inertia and fear,” Kant wrote, “are the reasons why so great a proportion of men … remain in lifelong immaturity.”
Certainly, AI's appeal lies in its efficiency. It saves time, reduces effort and – importantly – offers a novel way to abdicate responsibility. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm argued that the appeal of authoritarianism could be understood by a preference to give up personal freedom in exchange for the comforting security of obedience. AI presents a modern avenue for surrendering the burden of having to think and choose.
AI's greatest allure is its capacity to perform tasks beyond human capability – analyzing vast datasets at lightning pace. Sitting in the car in Marseille, this was, after all, why I chose to trust the app over my companion (a choice she interpreted as an affront). With knowledge of real-time information, certainly the app must know best – or so I believed.
The fundamental problem is that AI is a black box. It produces answers, but not always fostering human comprehension. We do not truly know the process behind its conclusions – even its programmers admit this. Nor can we check its reasoning against clear, objective criteria. So when we follow AI's recommendation, we are not being led by logic. We are back in the realm of faith. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, side with the machine – that could be our 21st-century guiding principle.
AI can be a powerful tool for mankind in rational inquiry. It can aid in medical research, liberate us from tedious tasks, or handle taxes – work 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. Independent thought was not just about productivity – it was a practice of freedom and human emancipation.
Human thought is often chaotic and fallible, but it forces us to debate, to question, to test ideas – 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 solely about acquiring knowledge; it was about empowering 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 reason and debate, rather than unquestioning acceptance.
With all the undeniable benefits AI brings, the key question is this: how can we leverage its potential of advanced capability without eroding human reasoning, the bedrock of the Enlightenment and of free societies itself? That is likely one of the defining questions of our century. It is a question we must strive not to outsource to the algorithm.
