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

This past summer, I found myself navigating in congested traffic on the sweltering streets of Marseille. At an intersection, my friend 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. Weary and in a stifling car, I followed the algorithm's directive. Moments later, we were stranded at a construction site.

A seemingly trivial event, maybe. But one that captures a central question of our era, where digital tools touches nearly every facet of our lives: whom do we trust more – other people and our own intuition, or the machine?

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-imposed nonage." This immaturity, he wrote, "represents the incapacity to use one's personal reason without direction from another." For ages, that guiding "other" for society was often the priest, the monarch, or the landowner – entities purporting to channel divine will. To comprehend phenomena like volcanic eruptions, people sought answers in religion. In organizing the fabric of society, from commerce to love, faith served as the primary guide.

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

Kant argued that humans always possessed the capacity for reason. They simply lacked the confidence to use it. With upheavals in America and France, a new dawn arrived: logic would replace blind faith, and the human mind, freed from authority, would become the engine of progress and a more ethical world.

Today, 250 years later, one might wonder if we are quietly regressing into a state of intellectual immaturity. An app suggesting a driving route is merely the start. AI threatens to become our contemporary authority – a silent overseer that steers our choices and behaviors. We risk relinquishing the historically earned autonomy to reason for ourselves – and now, not to deities or rulers, but to computer programs.

The Swift Adoption and Hidden Risks of Algorithmic Reliance

ChatGPT debuted a mere three years ago, and already a global survey indicated that an overwhelming majority of people had engaged with artificial intelligence in the previous six months. Whether contemplating a breakup or selecting a vote, individuals are looking to algorithms for counsel. Research suggests a large majority of user prompts relate to personal life matters. Even more intriguing than our use of AI for judgment is what happens when we let it speak for us. Composition is now one of the top uses for tools like ChatGPT, just behind everyday tasks. The celebrated American author Joan Didion once remarked, “I write entirely to find out what I am thinking.” What occurs when we stop composing? Do we cease discovering?

Worryingly, emerging research hints the answer may be yes. A study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used brain monitoring to track the cognitive activity of essay writers who had could use AI, Google, or no aids. Those who could rely on AI showed the lowest cognitive engagement and had trouble quoting their own work. Perhaps most concerning was that over time, participants in the AI group became progressively lazier, copying entire blocks 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 appeal stems from its efficiency. It is fast, reduces effort and – critically – offers a new method to abdicate accountability. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm proposed that the appeal of authoritarianism could be partly explained by a human tendency to surrender autonomy in for the sake of the comforting security of obedience. AI presents a modern method of relinquishing the burden of having to think and choose.

The Black Box Problem: Trust Without Understanding

AI's greatest allure is its ability to accomplish things outside our minds – analyzing oceans of data at unprecedented speed. Stuck in the car in Marseille, this was, after all, why I opted to trust the app over my friend (a choice she interpreted as an affront). With access to all the data, surely the app must know best – or so I thought.

The fundamental problem is that AI operates as a opaque system. It generates knowledge, but not always deepening human understanding. We cannot fully grasp the process behind its conclusions – even its creators acknowledge the opacity. Nor can we verify its logic against clear, objective criteria. So when we follow AI's recommendation, we are not being guided by reason. We are returning to the realm of belief. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, trust the machine – that may become our 21st-century credo.

Harnessing Without Eroding: The Critical Balance

AI can be a formidable ally for mankind in scientific pursuit. It can aid in medical research, free us from tedious tasks, or manage administrative chores – work that demand little thought and are unfulfilling. This is beneficial. But Kant and his contemporaries did not advocate for enlightenment just so humans could optimize chores or have extra free time. Critical thinking was not just about efficiency – it was a discipline of liberty and human emancipation.

Human thought is often chaotic and fallible, but it forces us to debate, to question, to test ideas – and to acknowledge the limits of our own understanding. It builds self-reliance, both personally 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 domination. It was about creating a moral community based on 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 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 would do well not to delegate to the machine.