Our King, Our Priest, Our Feudal Lord – The Way AI Returns Us to the Medieval Era.

This recent season, I found myself navigating in congested traffic on the scorching streets of Marseille. At a crossing, my friend in the front seat advised 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 directive. Moments later, we were stuck at a roadwork site.

A minor event, maybe. But one that encapsulates a defining question of our time, where technology touches almost every aspect of our lives: who gets our trust more – fellow humans and our personal instincts, or the machine?

The Enlightenment's Promise and Our Modern Relapse

The renowned German philosopher Immanuel Kant once defined the Enlightenment as "man's release from its self-imposed nonage." This immaturity, he wrote, "represents the incapacity to use one's personal reason without guidance from an external source." For ages, that directing force for human thought was frequently the priest, the king, or the landowner – figures purporting to channel divine will. To comprehend phenomena like volcanic eruptions, people sought answers in theology. In organizing the social world, from economics to matters of the heart, faith acted as the primary guide.

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

Kant maintained that humans always possessed the ability to think rationally. They simply lacked the confidence to use it. With upheavals in the 18th century, a fresh era emerged: logic would replace blind faith, and the intellect, freed from dogma, would become the driver of advancement and a better world.

Today, two and a half centuries later, one might wonder if we are quietly regressing into a state of intellectual immaturity. An app suggesting a driving route is merely the start. Artificial intelligence threatens to become our contemporary authority – a silent overseer that influences our choices and behaviors. We risk relinquishing the hard-won courage to think independently – and now, not to gods or kings, but to computer programs.

The Rapid Rise and Subtle Dangers of Algorithmic Reliance

ChatGPT was launched a mere three years ago, and yet a recent study found that an overwhelming majority of respondents had engaged with artificial intelligence in the previous six months. Whether deciding on ending a relationship or choosing a candidate, individuals are increasingly turning to machines for counsel. Data suggests a large majority of user prompts relate to non-work topics. Even more intriguing than our use of AI for advice is what happens when we allow it speak for us. Writing is now one of the most common uses for tools like ChatGPT, just behind practical requests. The late American author Joan Didion famously said, “I write entirely to discover what I am thinking.” What transpires when we stop composing? Do we cease discovering?

Alarmingly, some evidence hints the outcome may be yes. A study conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used brain monitoring to track the cognitive activity of participants who had could use AI, traditional search engines, or nothing. Those who could use AI showed the lowest cognitive engagement and had difficulty accurately recalling their own work. Perhaps most concerning was that over time, individuals in the AI group grew progressively lazier, copying entire blocks of text.

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

Of course, AI's appeal lies in its convenience. It is fast, reduces effort and – importantly – offers a new method to offload accountability. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm proposed that the rise of fascism could be understood by a preference to surrender personal freedom in exchange for the comforting security of obedience. AI offers a modern method of relinquishing the burden of having to decide for oneself.

The Black Box Problem: Trust Without Understanding

AI's greatest allure is its ability to perform tasks outside human capability – sifting through oceans of data at lightning pace. Stuck in the car in Marseille, this was, after all, why I chose to believe the app over my friend (a decision she took as an affront). With access to all the data, certainly the app must know best – or so I believed.

The core issue is that AI operates as a opaque system. It produces answers, but not always deepening human understanding. We cannot fully grasp the process behind its decisions – even its creators admit this. Nor can we check its reasoning against clear, objective criteria. So when we heed AI's advice, we are not being led by logic. We are returning to the realm of faith. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, trust the machine – that could be our future credo.

Harnessing Without Eroding: The Essential Challenge

AI can be a formidable ally for humanity in rational inquiry. It can aid in medical research, liberate us from "bullshit jobs", or handle administrative chores – duties that demand little thought and are unfulfilling. All to the good. But Kant and his contemporaries did not champion enlightenment just so humans could assemble better furniture or have more leisure. Independent thought was not merely about efficiency – it was a practice of liberty and human emancipation.

Human thought is often chaotic and error-prone, but it compels us to argue, to question, to test ideas – and to acknowledge the boundaries of our own understanding. It builds confidence, both personally 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 building a moral community based on the common foundation of reason and debate, rather than unquestioning acceptance.

With all the undeniable benefits AI brings, the key question remains: how can we leverage its potential of superhuman intelligence without eroding human rationality, the cornerstone of the Enlightenment and of free societies themselves? That may be one of the defining questions of our century. It is a question we would do well not to outsource to the machine.