Our New Sovereign, Our Digital Priest, Our Algorithmic Overlord – The Way AI Returns Us to the Medieval Era.

This recent season, I found myself navigating in gridlocked traffic on the sweltering streets of Marseille. At an intersection, my companion in the front seat suggested a right turn toward a famous spot for fish soup. Yet, the digital guide on my phone instructed us to go forward. Fatigued and in a stifling car, I followed the algorithm's directive. Moments later, we were stuck at a construction site.

A seemingly trivial incident, maybe. But one that encapsulates a central question of our era, where technology touches almost every aspect of existence: whom do we trust more – other people and our personal instincts, or the algorithm?

A Call for Intellectual Maturity and Our Modern Relapse

The renowned German philosopher Immanuel Kant once defined the Enlightenment as "man's release from its self-inflicted nonage." This immaturity, he wrote, "represents the incapacity to use one's personal reason without direction from another." For ages, that guiding "other" for human thought was frequently the clergyman, the king, or the landowner – entities claiming to speak for divine will. To comprehend natural events like volcanic eruptions, people looked for explanations in religion. In shaping the social world, from economics to love, religious doctrine acted as the main compass.

“Sapere aude!” or “Dare to use your own understanding!”

Kant maintained that humans had the ability to think rationally. They simply lacked the boldness to use it. With upheavals in the 18th century, a fresh era arrived: logic would replace blind faith, and the intellect, freed from authority, would become the driver of advancement and a more ethical world.

Today, 250 years later, one might question if we are quietly regressing into a state of intellectual immaturity. An app dictating a direction is just one example. AI threatens to become our new "other" – a silent guide that influences our decisions and actions. We risk relinquishing the historically earned courage to reason for ourselves – and now, not to gods or kings, but to computer programs.

The Swift Adoption and Subtle Dangers of AI Dependence

ChatGPT debuted a mere three years ago, and yet a recent study found that an overwhelming majority of respondents had engaged with artificial intelligence in the preceding half-year. Whether deciding on a breakup or choosing a candidate, individuals are increasingly turning to machines for counsel. Data suggests a significant portion of user prompts concern personal life matters. Even more intriguing than our use of AI for advice is what occurs when we allow it speak for us. Composition is now one of 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 transpires when we cease writing? 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 cognitive activity of essay writers who had access to AI, Google, or nothing. Those who could rely on AI showed the least cognitive engagement and had trouble accurately recalling their own work. Maybe most concerning was that after a few months, individuals in the AI group became increasingly reliant, pasting entire blocks of text.

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

Certainly, AI's appeal stems from its convenience. It is fast, reduces effort and – critically – offers a novel way to offload accountability. 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 autonomy in for the sake of the reassuring certainty of subordination. AI presents a digital avenue for surrendering the burden of having to decide for oneself.

The Opacity Dilemma: Faith Over Reason

AI's primary draw is its ability to perform tasks beyond human capability – analyzing oceans of data at unprecedented speed. Stuck in the car in Marseille, this was, after all, why I chose to believe the machine over my companion (a choice she interpreted as an insult). With access to all the data, certainly the algorithm must know best – or so I thought.

The fundamental problem is that AI operates as a black box. It produces answers, but without necessarily deepening human comprehension. We do not truly know how AI reaches its decisions – including its creators acknowledge the opacity. Nor can we check its logic against transparent standards. 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 guiding principle.

Using Without Losing: The Essential Challenge

AI can be a powerful tool for humanity in scientific pursuit. It can aid in medical research, free us from "bullshit jobs", or handle administrative chores – work that are repetitive and offer little satisfaction. All to the good. But Kant and his contemporaries did not advocate for reason over faith just so humans could assemble better furniture or have extra free time. Independent thought was not just about efficiency – it was a practice of freedom and human emancipation.

Human thought is inherently messy and error-prone, but it compels us to debate, to doubt, to test ideas – and to recognize the limits of our own understanding. It builds confidence, both personally and as a society. For Kant, the use of reason was never only about acquiring knowledge; it was about enabling people to become agents of their own destinies, and to oppose control. It was about creating a ethical society grounded in the shared principle of rational discourse, rather than blind belief.

With all the undeniable benefits AI offers, the key question is this: how can we leverage its promise of advanced capability without eroding human reasoning, the cornerstone of the Enlightenment and of liberal democracy itself? That may be one of the defining questions of our time. It is a question we would do well not to delegate to the machine.