Our King, Our Priest, Our Feudal Lord – How AI Is Taking Us Back to the Dark Ages.

This recent season, I was caught in congested traffic on the sweltering streets of a southern French city. At a crossing, my companion in the passenger seat suggested a right turn toward a renowned spot for fish soup. However, the navigation app on my phone commanded us to go forward. Weary and overheated, I heeded the algorithm's directive. Minutes later, we were stuck at a roadwork site.

A minor event, perhaps. But one that captures a defining dilemma of our time, where technology permeates almost every aspect of existence: who gets our trust to a greater degree – other people and our personal instincts, or the machine?

The Enlightenment's Promise and A Contemporary Backslide

The renowned German philosopher Immanuel Kant famously described the Enlightenment as "humanity's emergence from its self-imposed immaturity." This immaturity, he argued, "is the incapacity to use one's personal reason without direction from another." For ages, that directing force for society was often the priest, the monarch, or the feudal lord – entities claiming to channel divine will. To explain natural events like changing seasons, people looked for explanations in religion. In shaping 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 had the capacity for reason. They simply lacked the boldness to use it. With upheavals in America and France, a fresh era arrived: logic would supplant superstition, and the human mind, liberated from dogma, would become the driver of advancement and a more ethical world.

Today, two and a half centuries later, one might wonder if we are slipping back into a state of intellectual immaturity. An app suggesting a direction is just one example. AI risks becoming our contemporary authority – a unseen guide that steers our decisions and actions. We risk ceding the hard-won courage to think independently – and now, not to gods or kings, but to lines of code.

The Swift Adoption and Hidden Risks of AI Dependence

ChatGPT debuted only in 2022, and yet a global survey found that an vast number of respondents had engaged with artificial intelligence in the previous six months. Whether contemplating ending a relationship or selecting a vote, individuals are increasingly turning to algorithms for guidance. Research suggests a significant portion of user queries concern personal life matters. Even more striking than our reliance on AI for judgment is what occurs when we let it speak for us. Writing is now one of the most common uses for tools like ChatGPT, second only to practical requests. The celebrated American author Joan Didion once remarked, “I write purely to find out what I am thinking.” What transpires when we stop composing? Do we cease discovering?

Alarmingly, emerging research suggests the outcome may be yes. A study conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used brain monitoring to track the mental engagement of essay writers who had could use AI, traditional search engines, or no aids. Those who could use AI showed the least cognitive engagement and had trouble accurately recalling their own work. Maybe most troubling was that after a few months, individuals in the AI group became progressively lazier, copying large sections of text.

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

Of course, AI's appeal lies in its convenience. It saves time, minimizes work and – importantly – offers a new method to abdicate accountability. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm proposed that the rise of fascism could be partly explained by a preference to surrender personal freedom in exchange for the comforting security of subordination. AI offers a modern avenue for relinquishing the weight of having to decide for oneself.

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 lightning pace. Stuck in the car in Marseille, this was, after all, why I chose to trust the machine over my companion (a decision she interpreted as an affront). With access to real-time information, certainly the app must know best – or so I believed.

The fundamental problem is that AI is a black box. It produces knowledge, but not always deepening human comprehension. We do not truly know the process behind its decisions – including its programmers acknowledge the opacity. Nor can we check its reasoning against transparent standards. So when we follow AI's advice, we are not being led by logic. We are back in the domain of belief. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, side with the machine – that could be our 21st-century guiding principle.

Using Without Losing: The Critical Balance

AI can be a powerful tool for humanity in rational inquiry. It can aid in medical research, free us from "bullshit jobs", or manage taxes – duties that are repetitive and offer little satisfaction. This is beneficial. But Kant and his peers did not champion reason over faith just so humans could assemble better furniture or have more leisure. Critical thinking was not just about efficiency – it was a practice of freedom and human self-determination.

Human thought is inherently messy and fallible, but it forces us to argue, to question, to challenge concepts – and to acknowledge the boundaries of our own knowledge. It fosters confidence, both individually and collectively. For Kant, the use of reason was never only about information; it was about enabling people to become agents of their own destinies, and to resist control. It was about creating a ethical society based on the common foundation of reason and debate, rather than blind belief.

With all the advantages AI brings, the key question remains: how can we leverage its promise of advanced capability without undermining human rationality, the bedrock of the Enlightenment and of liberal democracy themselves? That is likely one of the central dilemmas of our century. It is a question we would do well not to delegate to the algorithm.