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

This past summer, I found myself navigating in congested traffic on the sweltering streets of a southern French city. At an intersection, my friend in the front seat suggested a right turn toward a famous spot for fish soup. Yet, the navigation app on my phone instructed us to continue straight. Fatigued and in a stifling car, I heeded the app's directive. Moments later, we were stranded at a roadwork site.

A seemingly trivial incident, perhaps. But one that encapsulates a central dilemma of our time, where technology touches nearly every facet of existence: who gets our trust more – other people and our own intuition, or the algorithm?

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 nonage." This state, he wrote, "represents the inability to use one's own understanding without direction from another." For ages, that directing force for human thought was frequently the clergyman, the monarch, or the feudal lord – entities claiming to speak for God's voice. To comprehend natural events like volcanic eruptions, people looked for explanations in religion. In organizing the fabric of society, from economics to love, religious doctrine acted as the main compass.

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

Kant maintained that humans always possessed the ability to think rationally. They simply lacked the confidence to use it. With revolutions in America and France, a new dawn emerged: logic would replace blind faith, and the human mind, freed from dogma, would become the engine of advancement and a better world.

Today, 250 years later, one might question if we are slipping back into a form of dependency. An app suggesting a driving route is just one example. Artificial intelligence risks becoming our contemporary authority – a unseen overseer that steers our decisions and actions. We are in danger of ceding the historically earned autonomy to reason for ourselves – and now, not to gods or kings, but to computer programs.

The Rapid Rise and Subtle Dangers of Algorithmic Reliance

ChatGPT debuted a mere three years ago, and yet a recent study indicated that an overwhelming majority of respondents had used AI in the previous six months. Whether contemplating a breakup or choosing a candidate, individuals are looking to algorithms for counsel. Data suggests a large majority of user prompts concern personal life matters. Even more striking than our use of AI for judgment is what occurs when we let it express for us. Composition is now one of the top uses for generative AI, just behind everyday tasks. The late American author Joan Didion famously said, “I write purely to discover what I am thinking.” What occurs when we cease writing? Do we cease discovering?

Alarmingly, some evidence suggests the outcome may be affirmative. A study conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used brain monitoring to observe the mental engagement of participants who had access to AI, Google, or nothing. Those who could use AI displayed the least brain activity and had trouble quoting their own work. Perhaps most concerning was that after a few months, individuals in the AI group grew progressively lazier, copying large sections of text.

“Inertia and fear,” Kant wrote, “are the reasons why so many of men … stay in lifelong immaturity.”

Certainly, AI's attraction lies in its convenience. It is fast, reduces effort and – importantly – offers a new method to offload responsibility. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm proposed that the rise of fascism could be partly explained by a human tendency to surrender autonomy in exchange for the comforting security of obedience. AI presents a modern method of surrendering the weight of having to think and choose.

The Black Box Problem: Faith Over Reason

AI's primary draw is its ability to accomplish things beyond human capability – sifting through vast datasets at unprecedented speed. Stuck in the car in Marseille, this was, ultimately, why I chose to trust the machine over my companion (a choice she interpreted as an insult). With knowledge of real-time information, certainly the app must know best – or so I believed.

The fundamental problem is that AI operates as a black box. It generates knowledge, but without necessarily deepening human comprehension. We cannot fully grasp the process behind its conclusions – including its programmers acknowledge the opacity. Nor can we check its reasoning against clear, objective criteria. So when we follow AI's recommendation, we are not being led by logic. We are back in the realm of belief. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, side with the machine – that could be our 21st-century guiding principle.

Harnessing Without Eroding: The Critical Balance

AI can be a formidable ally for humanity in scientific pursuit. It can help inventing drugs, liberate us from tedious tasks, or manage taxes – work that are repetitive and offer little satisfaction. All to the good. But Kant and his peers did not advocate for reason over faith just so humans could optimize chores or have more leisure. Independent thought was not merely about productivity – it was a practice of freedom and human self-determination.

Human thought is inherently messy and fallible, but it compels us to debate, to question, to test ideas – and to recognize the limits of our own knowledge. It fosters confidence, 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 destinies, and to resist domination. It was about building a moral community based on the shared principle of rational discourse, rather than unquestioning acceptance.

With all the advantages AI brings, the key question remains: how can we leverage its promise of advanced capability without undermining human rationality, the cornerstone of the Enlightenment and of liberal democracy 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.