Our King, Our Priest, Our Feudal Lord – The Way AI Returns Us to the Dark Ages.

This recent season, I was caught in gridlocked traffic on the sweltering streets of a southern French city. At a crossing, my companion in the passenger seat suggested a right turn toward a famous spot for fish soup. However, the navigation app on my phone instructed us to go forward. Fatigued and in a stifling car, I followed the app's advice. Moments later, we were stranded at a roadwork site.

A minor event, perhaps. But one that captures a central dilemma of our era, where digital tools permeates almost every aspect of our lives: whom do we trust to a greater degree – fellow humans and our own intuition, or the machine?

A Call for Intellectual Maturity and A Contemporary Backslide

The influential German philosopher Immanuel Kant famously described the Enlightenment as "humanity's emergence from its self-imposed immaturity." This immaturity, he argued, "is the incapacity to use one's personal reason without direction from another." For ages, that guiding "other" for society was frequently the clergyman, the king, or the feudal lord – figures purporting to speak for God's voice. To explain natural events like changing seasons, people sought answers in theology. In shaping the fabric of society, from economics to matters of the heart, religious doctrine acted as the main compass.

“Sapere aude!” or “Dare to use your reason!”

Kant argued that humans had the ability to think rationally. They simply lacked the boldness to use it. With upheavals in America and France, a new dawn arrived: logic would supplant blind faith, and the intellect, freed from authority, would become the driver of advancement and a better world.

Today, two and a half centuries later, one might wonder if we are quietly regressing into a state of intellectual immaturity. An app dictating a direction is merely the start. AI threatens to become our contemporary authority – a silent overseer that influences our decisions and actions. We are in danger of ceding the hard-won courage to reason for ourselves – and this time, not to gods or kings, but to lines of code.

The Rapid Rise and Hidden Risks of AI Dependence

ChatGPT debuted a mere three years ago, and yet a global survey indicated that an overwhelming majority of people had used AI in the previous six months. Whether deciding on a breakup or choosing a candidate, individuals are increasingly turning to machines for guidance. Research suggests a large majority of user queries concern non-work topics. Even more striking than our use of AI for judgment is what happens when we let it express for us. Writing is now one of the top 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 cease discovering?

Alarmingly, emerging research hints the outcome may be yes. A study conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used electroencephalography to track the cognitive activity of participants who had could use AI, Google, or no aids. Those who could use AI displayed the least brain activity and had difficulty accurately recalling their own work. Maybe most troubling was that after a few months, individuals in the AI group grew increasingly reliant, copying entire blocks of text.

“Laziness and cowardice,” Kant wrote, “are the reasons why so many of men … remain in lifelong immaturity.”

Of course, AI's attraction stems from its convenience. It is fast, reduces effort and – critically – offers a novel way to abdicate accountability. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm argued that the rise of fascism could be partly explained by a human tendency to give up autonomy in exchange for the reassuring certainty of obedience. AI presents a modern avenue for relinquishing the weight of having to think and choose.

The Opacity Dilemma: Trust Without Understanding

AI's greatest allure is its ability to accomplish things outside human capability – analyzing oceans of data at lightning pace. Sitting in the car in Marseille, this was, ultimately, why I opted to trust the machine over my companion (a choice she interpreted as an affront). With knowledge of all the data, certainly the app had superior insight – or so I thought.

The core issue is that AI is a black box. It produces answers, but without necessarily deepening human understanding. We cannot fully grasp the process behind its conclusions – even its creators admit this. Nor can we verify its logic 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, side with the machine – that could be our 21st-century guiding principle.

Harnessing Without Eroding: The Essential Challenge

AI can be a powerful tool for humanity in scientific pursuit. It can aid in medical research, 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 champion reason over faith just so humans could optimize chores or have extra free time. Critical thinking was not merely about productivity – it was a discipline of freedom and human self-determination.

Human thought is inherently messy and fallible, but it compels us to debate, to question, to challenge concepts – and to acknowledge the limits of our own knowledge. It fosters self-reliance, both individually and collectively. 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 building a moral community grounded in 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 promise of advanced capability without undermining human reasoning, the bedrock of the Enlightenment and of liberal democracy itself? That may be one of the defining questions of our time. It is a question we would do well not to delegate to the machine.