Our King, Our Priest, Our Feudal Lord – The Way AI Returns Us to the Dark Ages.

This past summer, I was caught in gridlocked traffic on the scorching streets of a southern French city. At a crossing, my friend in the front seat advised a right turn toward a famous spot for fish soup. Yet, the digital guide on my phone commanded us to go forward. Fatigued and in a stifling car, I followed the app's advice. Moments later, we were stranded at a construction site.

A minor incident, perhaps. But one that encapsulates a defining dilemma of our era, where technology touches nearly every facet of existence: whom do we trust to a greater degree – fellow humans and our own intuition, or the algorithm?

The Enlightenment's Promise and Our Modern Relapse

The influential German philosopher Immanuel Kant famously described the Enlightenment as "man's release from its self-inflicted nonage." This immaturity, he argued, "represents the inability to use one's personal reason without guidance from another." For centuries, that directing force for society was often the priest, the monarch, or the feudal lord – figures claiming to speak for divine will. To comprehend phenomena like changing seasons, people sought answers in religion. In shaping the fabric of society, from economics to love, faith served 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 new dawn arrived: logic would supplant blind faith, and the human mind, liberated from authority, would become the engine of progress and a better world.

Now, 250 years later, one might question if we are slipping back into a form of intellectual immaturity. An app suggesting a direction is just one example. AI risks becoming our contemporary authority – a unseen overseer that influences our choices and behaviors. We are in danger of ceding the hard-won courage to reason for ourselves – 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 respondents had used AI in the preceding half-year. Whether deciding on a breakup or choosing a candidate, individuals are looking to algorithms for guidance. Data suggests a large majority of user prompts concern personal life matters. Even more intriguing than our use of AI for judgment is what occurs when we allow it speak for us. Composition is now among the most common uses for generative AI, just behind everyday tasks. 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?

Worryingly, emerging research hints the answer may be affirmative. A study conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used brain monitoring 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 trouble quoting their own work. Perhaps most troubling was that over time, individuals in the AI group grew progressively lazier, copying entire blocks of text.

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

Of course, AI's attraction stems from its convenience. It saves time, reduces effort and – critically – offers a novel way to abdicate 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 give up autonomy in for the sake of the comforting security of obedience. AI presents a digital method of surrendering the burden of having to decide for oneself.

The Black Box Problem: Faith Over Reason

AI's primary draw is its capacity to perform tasks outside human capability – sifting through vast datasets at unprecedented speed. Stuck in the car in Marseille, this was, after all, why I opted to believe the machine over my friend (a decision she took as an affront). With access to all the data, certainly the algorithm must know best – or so I thought.

The core issue is that AI operates as a opaque system. It produces answers, but not always deepening human comprehension. We cannot fully grasp the process behind its decisions – even its programmers acknowledge the opacity. Nor can we verify its logic against clear, objective criteria. So when we follow AI's advice, 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 scientific pursuit. It can aid in inventing drugs, liberate us from tedious tasks, or handle taxes – duties that are repetitive and offer little satisfaction. This is beneficial. But Kant and his peers did not advocate for enlightenment just so humans could assemble better furniture or have more leisure. Critical thinking was not just about efficiency – it was a practice of liberty and human emancipation.

Human thought is often chaotic and fallible, but it forces us to argue, to doubt, to challenge concepts – and to acknowledge the limits of our own understanding. It builds confidence, both individually and as a society. For Kant, the use of reason was never solely about acquiring knowledge; it was about enabling people to become authors of their own lives, and to resist control. It was about building a moral community grounded in the common foundation of rational discourse, rather than blind belief.

With all the advantages AI offers, the paramount challenge remains: how can we harness its potential of advanced capability without undermining human rationality, the bedrock of the Enlightenment and of free societies themselves? That may be one of the defining questions of our time. It is a question we would do well not to outsource to the algorithm.