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 congested traffic on the scorching streets of Marseille. At an intersection, my companion in the passenger seat advised a right turn toward a renowned spot for fish soup. Yet, the navigation app on my phone commanded us to continue straight. Weary and overheated, I heeded the app's directive. Minutes later, we were stuck at a construction site.

A minor event, maybe. But one that captures a defining question of our era, where technology permeates almost every aspect of existence: who gets our trust more – other people and our personal instincts, or the algorithm?

A Call for Intellectual Maturity and Our Modern Relapse

The influential German philosopher Immanuel Kant famously described the Enlightenment as "man's release from its self-imposed immaturity." This state, he wrote, "is the inability to use one's personal reason without direction from an external source." For centuries, that directing force for society was frequently the clergyman, the monarch, or the landowner – figures purporting to speak for God's voice. To explain natural events like volcanic eruptions, people looked for explanations in religion. In shaping the fabric of society, from economics to love, religious doctrine acted as the primary guide.

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

Kant maintained that humans had the ability to think rationally. They just didn't have the boldness to use it. With upheavals in America and France, a new dawn emerged: reason would replace blind faith, and the human mind, liberated from authority, would become the driver of progress and a more ethical world.

Now, two and a half centuries later, one might question if we are slipping back into a form of intellectual immaturity. An app dictating a driving route is merely the start. Artificial intelligence threatens to become our contemporary authority – a unseen overseer that influences our decisions and behaviors. We risk relinquishing the hard-won courage to think independently – and this time, not to gods or kings, but to computer programs.

The Rapid Rise and Hidden Risks of AI Dependence

ChatGPT debuted only in 2022, and already a recent study found that an overwhelming majority of respondents had used AI in the previous six months. Whether deciding on a breakup or choosing a candidate, individuals are looking to machines for guidance. Data suggests a significant portion of user prompts relate to non-work topics. Even more intriguing than our use of AI for judgment is what happens when we let it speak for us. Composition is now one of the top uses for tools like ChatGPT, second only to practical requests. The celebrated American author Joan Didion once remarked, “I write entirely to discover what I am thinking.” What transpires when we stop composing? Do we cease discovering?

Alarmingly, emerging research suggests the outcome may be affirmative. A study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used electroencephalography to observe the cognitive activity of participants who had could use AI, traditional search engines, or nothing. Those who could rely on AI showed the lowest cognitive engagement and had trouble quoting their own work. Perhaps most troubling was that over time, individuals in the AI group grew progressively lazier, pasting large sections of text.

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

Certainly, AI's attraction stems from its convenience. It is fast, minimizes work and – importantly – offers a new method to offload accountability. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm argued that the appeal of authoritarianism could be understood by a preference to surrender personal freedom in exchange for the comforting security of obedience. AI presents a digital method of surrendering the weight of having to decide for oneself.

The Black Box Problem: Faith Over Reason

AI's greatest allure is its capacity to accomplish things beyond human capability – sifting through vast datasets at unprecedented speed. Stuck in the car in Marseille, this was, ultimately, why I opted to trust the machine over my companion (a decision she took as an insult). With knowledge of real-time information, certainly the algorithm must know best – or so I thought.

The core issue is that AI is a black box. It generates answers, but without necessarily fostering human comprehension. We cannot fully grasp how AI reaches its conclusions – even its programmers admit this. 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 domain of faith. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, trust the machine – that may become our 21st-century credo.

Using Without Losing: The Critical Balance

AI can be a powerful tool for mankind in rational inquiry. It can help medical research, liberate us from tedious tasks, or handle taxes – duties that are repetitive and are unfulfilling. All to the good. But Kant and his contemporaries did not champion reason over faith just so humans could assemble better furniture or have extra free time. Critical thinking was not just about productivity – it was a discipline of liberty and human emancipation.

Human thought is inherently messy and error-prone, but it forces us to debate, to question, to test ideas – and to acknowledge the limits of our own understanding. It fosters self-reliance, both individually and as a society. For Kant, the use of reason was never only about acquiring knowledge; it was about empowering people to become agents of their own destinies, and to resist control. It was about building a moral community based on the shared principle of reason and debate, rather than blind belief.

With all the undeniable benefits AI brings, the paramount challenge remains: how can we leverage its promise of superhuman intelligence without eroding human rationality, the bedrock of the Enlightenment and of liberal democracy itself? That is likely one of the central dilemmas of our century. It is a question we would do well not to outsource to the algorithm.