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

This past summer, I was caught in gridlocked traffic on the scorching streets of a southern French city. At an intersection, my friend in the front seat advised a right turn toward a renowned spot for bouillabaisse. Yet, the digital guide on my phone commanded us to go forward. Weary and overheated, I followed the algorithm's directive. Minutes later, we were stranded at a construction site.

A seemingly trivial incident, perhaps. But one that captures a central question of our era, where digital tools permeates nearly every facet of our lives: who gets our trust more – other people and our own intuition, or the machine?

A Call for Intellectual Maturity and A Contemporary Backslide

The influential German philosopher Immanuel Kant once defined the Enlightenment as "man's release from its self-imposed nonage." This immaturity, he argued, "represents the inability to use one's personal reason without direction from an external source." For centuries, that directing force for society was frequently the priest, the monarch, or the feudal lord – entities purporting to channel divine will. To explain natural events like changing seasons, people looked for explanations in religion. In organizing the fabric of society, from commerce to matters of the heart, faith acted as the main compass.

“Sapere aude!” or “Have courage to use your reason!”

Kant maintained that humans had the ability to think rationally. They just didn't have the confidence to use it. With revolutions in America and France, a fresh era emerged: logic would replace blind faith, and the intellect, liberated from authority, would become the driver of advancement and a more ethical world.

Now, two and a half centuries later, one might question if we are slipping back into a state of dependency. An app suggesting a driving route is just one example. Artificial intelligence risks becoming our new "other" – a unseen overseer that steers our decisions and actions. We risk ceding the historically earned courage to think independently – and now, not to gods or kings, but to lines of code.

The Rapid Rise and Subtle Dangers of AI Dependence

ChatGPT debuted only in 2022, and already a recent study found that an vast number of people had used AI in the preceding half-year. Whether contemplating a breakup or choosing a candidate, individuals are looking to machines for guidance. Data suggests a large majority of user prompts 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 generative AI, just behind everyday tasks. The celebrated American author Joan Didion famously said, “I write purely to find out what I am thinking.” What transpires when we stop composing? Do we lose that path?

Worryingly, emerging research suggests the answer may be affirmative. A study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used electroencephalography to track the mental engagement of participants who had could use AI, Google, or no aids. Those who could rely on AI showed the lowest brain activity and had difficulty accurately recalling their own work. Maybe most troubling was that after a few months, participants in the AI group grew increasingly reliant, pasting entire blocks of text.

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

Of course, AI's appeal stems from its efficiency. It is fast, reduces effort and – critically – offers a new method to offload responsibility. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm argued that the rise of fascism could be partly explained by a preference to give up personal freedom in exchange for the comforting security of obedience. AI presents a digital avenue for surrendering the burden of having to decide for oneself.

The Black Box Problem: Trust Without Understanding

AI's greatest allure is its ability to accomplish things beyond our minds – analyzing oceans of data at lightning pace. Stuck in the car in Marseille, this was, ultimately, why I chose to trust the app over my friend (a decision she interpreted as an affront). With knowledge of all the data, certainly the app had superior insight – or so I thought.

The fundamental problem is that AI operates as a opaque system. It generates answers, but not always fostering human comprehension. We do not truly know how AI reaches its conclusions – including its creators admit this. Nor can we check its reasoning against clear, objective criteria. So when we heed AI's recommendation, we are not being guided by reason. We are back in the domain of faith. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, trust the machine – that may become our future credo.

Harnessing Without Eroding: The Critical Balance

AI can be a formidable ally for mankind in rational inquiry. It can aid in medical research, free us from "bullshit jobs", or handle administrative chores – work that demand little thought and are unfulfilling. All to the good. But Kant and his peers did not advocate for enlightenment just so humans could optimize chores or have more leisure. Independent thought 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 forces us to debate, to doubt, to challenge concepts – and to recognize the boundaries of our own knowledge. It fosters self-reliance, both individually and collectively. For Kant, the exercise of reason was never only about information; it was about empowering people to become agents of their own lives, and to oppose control. It was about creating a moral community based on the shared principle of rational discourse, rather than unquestioning acceptance.

With all the advantages AI offers, the key question remains: how can we leverage its promise of advanced capability without eroding 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.