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 Marseille. At an intersection, my companion in the passenger seat suggested a right turn toward a famous spot for bouillabaisse. However, the navigation app on my phone instructed us to go forward. Weary and overheated, I heeded the algorithm's advice. Moments later, we were stranded at a construction site.

A minor incident, perhaps. But one that encapsulates a central question of our time, where digital tools touches nearly every facet of our lives: whom do we trust to a greater degree – fellow humans and our own intuition, or the machine?

The Enlightenment's Promise and Our Modern Relapse

The renowned German philosopher Immanuel Kant famously described the Enlightenment as "man's release from its self-inflicted nonage." This state, he wrote, "is the incapacity to use one's own understanding without direction from another." For centuries, that directing force for society was often the clergyman, the king, or the feudal lord – entities purporting to channel God's voice. To comprehend natural events like changing seasons, people looked for explanations in theology. In shaping the fabric of society, from commerce to matters of the heart, religious doctrine served as the main compass.

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

Kant argued that humans had the capacity for reason. They simply lacked the confidence to use it. With revolutions in America and France, a fresh era emerged: reason would supplant superstition, and the human mind, freed from authority, would become the driver of advancement and a more ethical world.

Today, two and a half centuries later, one might question if we are quietly regressing into a form of intellectual immaturity. An app dictating a direction is merely the start. Artificial intelligence risks becoming our new "other" – a unseen guide that influences our decisions and behaviors. We are in danger of relinquishing the hard-won autonomy to reason for ourselves – and this time, not to gods or kings, but to computer programs.

The Rapid Rise and Subtle Dangers of Algorithmic Reliance

ChatGPT debuted only in 2022, and yet a recent study found that an vast number of respondents had engaged with artificial intelligence in the previous six months. Whether contemplating a breakup or choosing a candidate, individuals are looking to machines for counsel. Data suggests a significant portion of user queries concern personal life matters. Even more intriguing than our use of AI for judgment is what occurs when we let it express for us. Composition is now one of the most common uses for generative AI, second only to practical requests. The celebrated American author Joan Didion once remarked, “I write purely to find out what I am thinking.” What transpires when we stop composing? Do we cease discovering?

Alarmingly, emerging research hints the outcome may be affirmative. A study conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used brain monitoring to observe the cognitive activity of participants who had could use AI, Google, or nothing. Those who could rely on AI displayed the least cognitive engagement and had trouble quoting their own work. Maybe most concerning was that over time, individuals in the AI group became progressively lazier, copying entire blocks of text.

“Laziness and cowardice,” Kant wrote, “are the reasons why so great a proportion of men … remain in perpetual nonage.”

Of course, AI's attraction lies in its convenience. It saves time, minimizes work and – importantly – offers a new method to abdicate responsibility. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm proposed that the appeal of authoritarianism could be partly explained by a preference to give up personal freedom in exchange for the reassuring certainty of subordination. AI offers a modern method of surrendering the burden of having to decide for oneself.

The Black Box Problem: Trust Without Understanding

AI's primary draw is its ability to perform tasks beyond human capability – analyzing vast datasets at unprecedented speed. Sitting in the car in Marseille, this was, ultimately, why I chose to believe the app over my friend (a decision she interpreted as an affront). With access to all the data, surely the algorithm must know best – or so I believed.

The core issue is that AI is a opaque system. It generates answers, but not always deepening human comprehension. We cannot fully grasp the process behind its conclusions – even its creators acknowledge the opacity. Nor can we check its reasoning against transparent standards. So when we follow AI's recommendation, we are not being led by logic. We are returning to the realm of belief. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, trust the machine – that may become our 21st-century guiding principle.

Harnessing Without Eroding: The Critical Balance

AI can be a formidable ally for mankind in rational inquiry. It can help inventing drugs, free us from "bullshit jobs", or handle taxes – work that demand little thought and offer little satisfaction. All to the good. But Kant and his contemporaries did not advocate for reason over faith just so humans could assemble better furniture or have more leisure. Critical thinking was not merely about productivity – it was a discipline of freedom and human emancipation.

Human thought is often chaotic and error-prone, but it forces us to debate, to doubt, to challenge concepts – and to acknowledge the boundaries of our own understanding. It fosters confidence, both individually and as a society. For Kant, the use of reason was never only about information; it was about enabling people to become agents of their own destinies, and to resist control. It was about building a moral community grounded in the shared principle of rational discourse, rather than blind belief.

With all the undeniable benefits AI brings, the paramount challenge remains: how can we harness its potential of advanced capability without eroding human rationality, the cornerstone of the Enlightenment and of free societies themselves? That is likely one of the central dilemmas of our century. It is a question we would do well not to delegate to the machine.