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

This past summer, I found myself navigating in gridlocked traffic on the sweltering streets of Marseille. At an intersection, my companion in the passenger seat suggested a right turn toward a renowned spot for fish soup. Yet, the navigation app on my phone commanded us to go forward. Fatigued and overheated, I heeded the app's advice. Moments later, we were stranded at a construction site.

A seemingly trivial incident, perhaps. But one that encapsulates a defining question of our era, where technology permeates almost every aspect of existence: who gets our trust more – fellow humans and our personal instincts, or the algorithm?

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-inflicted immaturity." This immaturity, he wrote, "is the incapacity to use one's own understanding without direction from an external source." For centuries, that guiding "other" for society was often the clergyman, the king, or the landowner – figures claiming to channel divine will. To comprehend natural events like volcanic eruptions, people looked for explanations in theology. In organizing the fabric of society, from commerce to love, religious doctrine acted as the main compass.

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

Kant argued that humans had the ability to think rationally. They simply lacked the boldness to employ it. With upheavals in the 18th century, a fresh era arrived: logic would replace blind faith, and the intellect, liberated from dogma, would become the engine of progress and a more ethical world.

Today, two and a half centuries later, one might wonder if we are quietly regressing into a state of dependency. An app suggesting a direction is merely the start. AI risks becoming our new "other" – a unseen guide that influences our choices and actions. We risk relinquishing the historically earned courage to think independently – and now, not to gods or kings, but to computer programs.

The Swift Adoption and Subtle Dangers of AI Dependence

ChatGPT debuted a mere three years ago, and already a global survey found 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 guidance. Research suggests a significant portion of user queries concern personal life matters. Even more striking than our reliance on AI for judgment is what happens when we let it express for us. Composition is now among the top uses for tools like ChatGPT, second only to everyday tasks. The celebrated American author Joan Didion famously said, “I write entirely to discover what I am thinking.” What occurs when we stop composing? Do we cease discovering?

Worryingly, emerging research suggests 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 could use AI, Google, or nothing. Those who could use AI displayed the lowest cognitive engagement and had difficulty quoting their own work. Maybe most concerning was that over time, participants in the AI group became progressively lazier, copying large sections of text.

“Inertia and fear,” Kant wrote, “are the reasons why so many of men … remain in perpetual nonage.”

Certainly, AI's appeal stems from its convenience. 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 argued that the rise of fascism could be understood by a preference to give up personal freedom in for the sake of the reassuring certainty of subordination. AI offers a modern method of relinquishing the weight of having to think and choose.

The Black Box Problem: Trust Without Understanding

AI's primary draw is its capacity to accomplish things outside human capability – analyzing oceans of data at unprecedented speed. Sitting in the car in Marseille, this was, after all, why I opted to believe the app over my companion (a choice she interpreted as an affront). With knowledge of all the data, surely the app must know best – or so I thought.

The fundamental problem is that AI operates as a black box. It produces knowledge, but not always deepening human comprehension. We do not truly know the process behind its conclusions – even its creators acknowledge the opacity. Nor can we verify its logic against transparent standards. So when we follow AI's recommendation, we are not being led by logic. We are back in the domain of belief. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, trust the machine – that may become our 21st-century credo.

Harnessing Without Eroding: The Essential Challenge

AI can be a formidable ally for mankind in rational inquiry. It can help medical research, liberate us from tedious tasks, or handle taxes – work that are repetitive and are unfulfilling. All to the good. But Kant and his peers did not champion reason over faith just so humans could optimize chores or have extra free time. Independent thought was not merely about efficiency – it was a practice of freedom and human self-determination.

Human thought is often chaotic and error-prone, but it forces us to argue, to doubt, to challenge concepts – and to acknowledge the limits of our own knowledge. It fosters self-reliance, both individually and as a society. For Kant, the exercise of reason was never solely about acquiring knowledge; it was about enabling people to become authors of their own destinies, and to resist control. It was about building a ethical society based on the common foundation of rational discourse, rather than unquestioning acceptance.

With all the advantages AI brings, the paramount challenge remains: how can we harness its promise of advanced capability without undermining human rationality, the cornerstone of the Enlightenment and of free societies itself? 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.