This recent season, I found myself navigating in congested traffic on the sweltering streets of Marseille. At an intersection, my companion in the passenger seat suggested a right turn toward a renowned spot for fish soup. However, the digital guide on my phone instructed us to go forward. Weary and in a stifling car, I heeded the algorithm's directive. Moments later, we were stuck at a roadwork site.
A seemingly trivial incident, perhaps. But one that encapsulates a defining question of our time, where digital tools touches nearly every facet of existence: who gets our trust more – other people and our own intuition, or the algorithm?
The influential German philosopher Immanuel Kant famously described the Enlightenment as "man's release from its self-inflicted nonage." This state, he argued, "is the incapacity to use one's own understanding without guidance from an external source." For centuries, that directing force for society was often the clergyman, the king, or the feudal lord – entities claiming to speak for divine will. To comprehend phenomena like changing seasons, people looked for explanations in religion. In organizing the social world, from commerce to matters of the heart, faith served as the main compass.
“Sapere aude!” or “Dare to use your own understanding!”
Kant argued that humans had the capacity for reason. 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, freed from authority, would become the engine of advancement and a better world.
Now, two and a half centuries later, one might question if we are quietly regressing into a state of dependency. An app dictating a driving route is just one example. AI risks becoming our contemporary authority – a unseen overseer that steers our decisions and behaviors. We risk relinquishing the historically earned courage to think independently – and now, not to gods or kings, but to computer programs.
ChatGPT was launched a mere three years ago, and yet a global survey indicated that an vast number of people had engaged with artificial intelligence in the previous six months. Whether deciding on ending a relationship or choosing a candidate, individuals are looking to algorithms for counsel. Data suggests a significant portion of user queries relate to personal life matters. Even more intriguing than our use of AI for advice is what happens when we allow it express for us. Composition is now among the top uses for generative AI, just behind everyday tasks. 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?
Worryingly, some evidence suggests the answer may be affirmative. A study conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used electroencephalography to observe the cognitive activity of participants who had could use AI, Google, or nothing. Those who could rely on AI displayed the lowest cognitive engagement and had trouble accurately recalling their own work. Maybe most concerning was that after a few months, participants 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 … stay in lifelong immaturity.”
Certainly, AI's attraction lies in its efficiency. 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 give up autonomy in exchange for the reassuring certainty of subordination. AI offers a digital method of relinquishing the burden of having to think and choose.
AI's primary draw is its capacity to accomplish things beyond human capability – analyzing vast datasets at unprecedented speed. Stuck in the car in Marseille, this was, after all, why I chose to trust the app 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 believed.
The fundamental problem is that AI is a black box. It generates knowledge, but not always fostering human comprehension. We do not truly know how AI reaches its conclusions – even its programmers admit this. Nor can we verify its logic against clear, objective criteria. So when we heed AI's recommendation, we are not being led by logic. We are back in the domain of belief. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, trust the machine – that could be our future credo.
AI can be a powerful tool for humanity in scientific pursuit. It can aid in medical research, liberate us from "bullshit jobs", or handle taxes – work 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 productivity – it was a discipline of freedom and human self-determination.
Human thought is often chaotic and error-prone, but it compels us to argue, to doubt, to challenge concepts – and to recognize the boundaries of our own understanding. It builds self-reliance, both personally and as a society. For Kant, the exercise of reason was never only about acquiring knowledge; it was about empowering people to become authors of their own destinies, and to oppose domination. It was about creating a moral community based on the shared principle of reason and debate, rather than unquestioning acceptance.
With all the advantages AI brings, the key question is this: how can we leverage its potential of advanced capability without undermining human rationality, the bedrock of the Enlightenment and of liberal democracy themselves? That may be one of the central dilemmas of our century. It is a question we must strive not to delegate to the machine.
A seasoned casino analyst with over a decade of experience in gaming strategies and industry trends.
