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 congested traffic on the scorching streets of a southern French city. At an intersection, my companion in the front seat suggested a right turn toward a famous spot for bouillabaisse. Yet, the digital guide on my phone instructed us to go forward. Fatigued and overheated, I heeded the app's directive. Moments later, we were stranded at a construction site.

A seemingly trivial event, maybe. But one that captures a defining dilemma of our era, where technology permeates almost every aspect of our lives: whom do we trust more – fellow humans and our personal instincts, or the machine?

A Call for Intellectual Maturity and Our Modern Relapse

The renowned German philosopher Immanuel Kant famously described the Enlightenment as "humanity's emergence from its self-imposed immaturity." This immaturity, he wrote, "is the incapacity to use one's personal reason without direction from another." For centuries, that directing force for human thought was frequently the priest, the monarch, or the landowner – figures purporting to speak for God's voice. To explain phenomena like changing seasons, people sought answers in religion. In shaping the social world, from commerce to love, religious doctrine served 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 employ it. With upheavals in the 18th century, a new dawn emerged: logic would replace blind faith, and the intellect, liberated from dogma, would become the driver of advancement and a better world.

Now, 250 years later, one might question 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 new "other" – a unseen guide that influences our choices and actions. We risk relinquishing the historically earned courage 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 a mere three years ago, and already a global survey indicated that an overwhelming majority of people 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 guidance. Research suggests a large majority of user prompts concern non-work topics. Even more striking than our reliance on AI for advice is what happens when we let it express for us. Writing is now one of the top uses for tools like ChatGPT, second only to everyday tasks. The late American author Joan Didion famously said, “I write entirely to find out what I am thinking.” What transpires when we cease writing? Do we lose that path?

Alarmingly, some evidence hints the answer may be affirmative. A study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used electroencephalography to track the mental engagement of essay writers who had could use AI, traditional search engines, or nothing. Those who could use AI displayed the lowest cognitive engagement and had difficulty accurately recalling their own work. Maybe most concerning was that after a few months, individuals in the AI group became increasingly reliant, copying large sections of text.

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

Of course, AI's appeal lies in its convenience. It saves time, reduces effort and – importantly – offers a new method to abdicate accountability. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm argued that the rise of fascism could be understood by a human tendency to surrender personal freedom in for the sake of the comforting security of obedience. AI presents a modern method of relinquishing the burden of having to decide for oneself.

The Black Box Problem: Trust Without Understanding

AI's primary draw is its ability to perform tasks outside our minds – sifting through vast datasets at lightning pace. Stuck in the car in Marseille, this was, after all, why I chose to trust the app over my companion (a decision she interpreted as an insult). With knowledge of all the data, surely the app must know best – or so I believed.

The core issue is that AI operates as a opaque system. It produces knowledge, but not always deepening human understanding. We cannot fully grasp the process behind its conclusions – including its programmers admit this. Nor can we check its logic against transparent standards. So when we follow AI's recommendation, we are not being led by logic. We are returning to the realm of faith. 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 powerful tool for humanity in rational inquiry. It can help medical research, free us from tedious tasks, or handle administrative chores – work that are repetitive and are unfulfilling. All to the good. But Kant and his peers did not advocate for enlightenment just so humans could optimize chores or have more leisure. Critical thinking was not merely about productivity – it was a practice 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 acknowledge the limits of our own understanding. It builds confidence, both individually and collectively. For Kant, the use 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 building a ethical society grounded in the shared principle of reason and debate, rather than blind belief.

With all the advantages AI brings, the key question is this: how can we leverage its potential of superhuman intelligence without eroding human rationality, the cornerstone of the Enlightenment and of liberal democracy themselves? That may be one of the central dilemmas of our time. It is a question we would do well not to delegate to the machine.