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

This past summer, I was caught in congested traffic on the sweltering streets of a southern French city. At a crossing, my companion in the front seat suggested a right turn toward a famous spot for bouillabaisse. However, the navigation app on my phone commanded us to go forward. Weary and overheated, I followed the app's advice. Minutes later, we were stuck at a roadwork site.

A seemingly trivial incident, maybe. But one that encapsulates a defining question of our time, where technology permeates nearly every facet of our lives: whom do we trust to a greater degree – other people and our own intuition, or the algorithm?

A Call for Intellectual Maturity and Our Modern Relapse

The influential German philosopher Immanuel Kant once defined the Enlightenment as "humanity's emergence from its self-imposed immaturity." This state, he wrote, "represents the inability 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 God's voice. To comprehend phenomena like changing seasons, people looked for explanations in religion. In shaping the social world, from commerce to love, religious doctrine acted as the main compass.

“Sapere aude!” or “Dare to use your reason!”

Kant argued that humans had the ability to think rationally. They just didn't have the confidence to employ it. With upheavals in America and France, a fresh era arrived: logic would supplant superstition, and the human mind, freed from dogma, would become the engine of progress and a better world.

Now, two and a half centuries later, one might wonder if we are quietly regressing into a state of intellectual immaturity. An app dictating a direction is merely the start. AI threatens to become our contemporary authority – a silent overseer that steers our choices and actions. We are in danger of relinquishing the hard-won autonomy to think independently – and now, not to gods or kings, but to lines of code.

The Rapid Rise and Hidden Risks of Algorithmic Reliance

ChatGPT debuted only in 2022, and yet a global survey found that an vast number of people had engaged with artificial intelligence in the preceding half-year. Whether contemplating ending a relationship or choosing a candidate, individuals are looking to machines for counsel. Research suggests a significant portion of user prompts relate to non-work topics. Even more intriguing than our use of AI for advice is what occurs when we allow it express for us. Writing is now among the most common uses for generative AI, second only to everyday tasks. The celebrated American author Joan Didion famously said, “I write entirely to find out what I am thinking.” What occurs when we cease writing? Do we cease discovering?

Worryingly, emerging research suggests the outcome may be yes. A study conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used brain monitoring to observe the mental engagement of essay writers who had could use AI, Google, or nothing. 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 became progressively lazier, pasting large sections of text.

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

Of course, AI's attraction lies in its efficiency. It saves time, reduces effort and – critically – offers a new method to abdicate responsibility. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm argued that the rise of fascism could be partly explained by a human tendency to give up personal freedom in exchange for the comforting security of subordination. AI presents a digital method of relinquishing the weight of having to decide for oneself.

The Opacity Dilemma: Faith Over Reason

AI's greatest allure is its ability to perform tasks outside human capability – analyzing oceans of data at unprecedented speed. Sitting in the car in Marseille, this was, ultimately, why I chose to believe the machine over my companion (a decision she took as an insult). With access to real-time information, surely the app must know best – or so I thought.

The fundamental problem is that AI operates as a black box. It generates knowledge, but not always fostering human comprehension. We cannot fully grasp the process behind its decisions – even its creators admit this. 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 realm of belief. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, trust the machine – that could be our 21st-century guiding principle.

Using Without Losing: The Critical Balance

AI can be a formidable ally for humanity in rational inquiry. It can aid in medical research, liberate us from tedious tasks, or handle administrative chores – duties that are repetitive and offer little satisfaction. All to the good. But Kant and his peers did not advocate for reason over faith just so humans could assemble better furniture or have extra free time. Critical thinking was not just about efficiency – it was a practice of liberty and human self-determination.

Human thought is inherently messy and fallible, but it compels us to debate, to doubt, to test ideas – and to acknowledge the limits of our own understanding. It builds confidence, both personally and collectively. For Kant, the exercise of reason was never only about acquiring knowledge; it was about empowering people to become agents of their own destinies, and to resist domination. It was about creating a ethical society based on the shared principle of reason and debate, rather than unquestioning acceptance.

With all the advantages AI brings, the paramount challenge is this: how can we leverage its promise of superhuman intelligence without undermining human reasoning, the cornerstone of the Enlightenment and of liberal democracy itself? That may be one of the central dilemmas of our time. It is a question we would do well not to outsource to the machine.