Our New Sovereign, Our Digital Priest, Our Algorithmic Overlord – The Way AI Returns Us to the Dark Ages.

This recent season, I was caught in congested traffic on the sweltering streets of a southern French city. At a crossing, my companion in the front seat suggested a right turn toward a renowned spot for bouillabaisse. However, the navigation app on my phone instructed us to continue straight. Weary and overheated, I heeded the algorithm's advice. Moments later, we were stranded at a roadwork site.

A minor event, perhaps. But one that encapsulates a defining question of our time, where digital tools permeates almost every aspect of our lives: whom do we trust more – fellow humans 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-inflicted immaturity." This immaturity, he argued, "is the inability to use one's own understanding without direction from an external source." For ages, that guiding "other" for human thought was frequently the clergyman, the king, or the landowner – entities purporting to speak for God's voice. To comprehend phenomena like changing seasons, people looked for explanations in religion. In organizing the social world, from economics to love, religious doctrine served as the main compass.

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

Kant argued that humans always possessed the ability to think rationally. They simply lacked the boldness to use it. With revolutions in the 18th century, a fresh era emerged: logic would supplant superstition, and the human mind, freed from dogma, would become the driver of progress and a better world.

Now, two and a half centuries later, one might wonder if we are quietly regressing into a state of intellectual immaturity. An app suggesting a driving route is just one example. Artificial intelligence risks becoming our new "other" – a silent overseer that steers our choices and behaviors. We are in danger of ceding the historically earned autonomy to reason for ourselves – and now, not to deities or rulers, but to lines of code.

The Swift Adoption and Hidden Risks of AI Dependence

ChatGPT debuted a mere three years ago, and yet a recent study found that an vast number of people had used AI in the previous six months. Whether contemplating a breakup or selecting a vote, individuals are increasingly turning to algorithms for guidance. Data suggests a large majority of user queries relate to personal life matters. Even more intriguing than our use of AI for advice is what occurs when we allow it speak for us. Writing is now among the top uses for generative AI, second only to everyday tasks. The late American author Joan Didion once remarked, “I write purely to discover what I am thinking.” What transpires when we stop composing? Do we lose that path?

Worryingly, emerging research suggests the answer may be affirmative. A study conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used brain monitoring to track the cognitive activity of participants who had access to AI, traditional search engines, or no aids. Those who could use AI showed the least brain activity and had trouble quoting their own work. Perhaps most troubling was that after a few months, individuals in the AI group became increasingly reliant, copying entire blocks of text.

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

Certainly, AI's attraction stems from its convenience. It is fast, minimizes work and – importantly – offers a new method to offload responsibility. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm argued that the appeal of authoritarianism could be partly explained by a preference to give up personal freedom in exchange for the comforting security of subordination. AI offers a digital method of surrendering the weight of having to decide for oneself.

The Black Box Problem: Trust Without Understanding

AI's greatest allure is its capacity to accomplish things beyond our minds – analyzing vast datasets at lightning pace. Stuck in the car in Marseille, this was, after all, why I chose to trust the app over my companion (a choice she took as an insult). With access to real-time information, surely the algorithm must know best – or so I thought.

The fundamental problem is that AI is a opaque system. It produces knowledge, but not always fostering human understanding. We do not truly know the process behind its conclusions – including its programmers admit this. Nor can we verify its reasoning against clear, objective criteria. So when we follow 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, side with the machine – that may become our future guiding principle.

Harnessing Without Eroding: The Essential Challenge

AI can be a formidable ally for mankind in scientific pursuit. It can aid in medical research, liberate us from "bullshit jobs", or handle taxes – work that are repetitive and offer little satisfaction. This is beneficial. But Kant and his contemporaries did not advocate for enlightenment just so humans could optimize chores or have more leisure. Critical thinking was not just about efficiency – it was a practice of liberty and human self-determination.

Human thought is often chaotic and error-prone, but it compels us to argue, to question, to test ideas – and to acknowledge the limits of our own knowledge. It fosters self-reliance, both personally and as a society. For Kant, the exercise of reason was never solely about acquiring knowledge; it was about empowering people to become agents of their own lives, and to resist domination. It was about creating a moral community based on the common foundation of rational discourse, rather than blind belief.

With all the advantages AI offers, the key question remains: how can we leverage its potential of advanced capability without eroding human rationality, the cornerstone of the Enlightenment and of liberal democracy itself? That is likely one of the defining questions of our century. It is a question we would do well not to delegate to the algorithm.