Our New Sovereign, Our Digital Priest, Our Algorithmic Overlord – How AI Is Taking Us Back to the Dark Ages.

This recent season, I found myself navigating in gridlocked traffic on the sweltering streets of a southern French city. At a crossing, my companion in the front seat advised a right turn toward a renowned spot for bouillabaisse. Yet, the digital guide on my phone instructed us to go forward. Fatigued and in a stifling car, I followed the app's advice. Minutes later, we were stranded at a roadwork site.

A seemingly trivial event, perhaps. But one that captures a central dilemma of our era, where technology touches almost every aspect of our lives: who gets our trust more – fellow humans and our personal instincts, or the algorithm?

A Call for Intellectual Maturity and Our Modern Relapse

The influential German philosopher Immanuel Kant once defined the Enlightenment as "man's release from its self-imposed immaturity." This immaturity, he argued, "is the inability to use one's own understanding without guidance from another." For ages, that directing force for society was often the clergyman, the king, or the landowner – figures purporting to speak for God's voice. To comprehend phenomena like volcanic eruptions, people sought answers in religion. In shaping the social world, from economics to matters of the heart, religious doctrine served as the primary guide.

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

Kant argued that humans had the capacity for reason. They just didn't have the boldness to employ it. With upheavals in America and France, a fresh era emerged: reason would replace blind faith, and the intellect, liberated from dogma, would become the engine of progress and a more ethical world.

Now, two and a half centuries later, one might question if we are quietly regressing into a state of dependency. An app dictating a driving route is just one example. AI threatens to become our new "other" – a silent overseer that influences our decisions and actions. We are in danger of relinquishing the historically earned autonomy to think independently – and now, not to deities or rulers, but to lines of code.

The Rapid Rise and Hidden Risks of Algorithmic Reliance

ChatGPT debuted only in 2022, and already a global survey indicated that an overwhelming majority of respondents had engaged with artificial intelligence in the previous six months. Whether contemplating ending a relationship or selecting a vote, individuals are looking to machines for guidance. Data suggests a large majority of user prompts concern non-work topics. Even more intriguing than our use of AI for judgment is what occurs when we let it express for us. Writing is now among the most common uses for tools like ChatGPT, second only to everyday tasks. The late American author Joan Didion once remarked, “I write entirely to discover what I am thinking.” What occurs when we cease writing? Do we lose that path?

Alarmingly, some evidence hints the answer may be yes. A study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used electroencephalography to observe the cognitive activity of participants who had could use AI, Google, or no aids. Those who could rely on AI displayed the lowest brain activity and had trouble accurately recalling their own work. Perhaps most concerning was that over time, participants in the AI group grew increasingly reliant, pasting entire blocks of text.

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

Certainly, AI's appeal stems from its convenience. It saves time, minimizes work 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 human tendency to give up autonomy in exchange for the reassuring certainty of subordination. AI offers a digital avenue for surrendering the weight of having to decide for oneself.

The Black Box Problem: Trust Without Understanding

AI's greatest allure is its capacity to perform tasks beyond human capability – sifting through oceans of data at unprecedented speed. Stuck in the car in Marseille, this was, after all, why I chose to trust the machine over my friend (a decision she took as an insult). With knowledge of all the data, surely the algorithm had superior insight – or so I thought.

The fundamental problem is that AI operates as a opaque system. It generates 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 check its reasoning against clear, objective criteria. So when we follow AI's advice, we are not being guided by reason. We are returning to the domain of belief. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, trust the machine – that may become our future guiding principle.

Harnessing Without Eroding: The Essential Challenge

AI can be a powerful tool for mankind in scientific pursuit. It can help medical research, liberate us from tedious tasks, or manage taxes – work that are repetitive and are unfulfilling. All to the good. But Kant and his contemporaries did not advocate for reason over faith just so humans could optimize chores or have extra free time. Critical thinking was not just about productivity – it was a discipline of liberty and human self-determination.

Human thought is often chaotic and error-prone, but it compels us to debate, to question, to challenge concepts – and to acknowledge the limits of our own understanding. It builds self-reliance, both individually and collectively. For Kant, the exercise of reason was never solely about acquiring knowledge; it was about enabling people to become authors of their own lives, and to oppose control. It was about creating a moral community grounded in the common foundation of reason and debate, rather than blind belief.

With all the advantages AI brings, the key question remains: how can we leverage its potential of advanced capability without undermining human rationality, the cornerstone of the Enlightenment and of free societies itself? That may be one of the central dilemmas of our century. It is a question we must strive not to outsource to the machine.