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

This past summer, I found myself navigating in gridlocked traffic on the sweltering streets of Marseille. At an intersection, my companion in the passenger seat suggested a right turn toward a famous spot for fish soup. Yet, the navigation app on my phone commanded us to continue straight. Fatigued and overheated, I heeded the app's directive. Minutes later, we were stranded at a construction site.

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

A Call for Intellectual Maturity and Our Modern Relapse

The influential German philosopher Immanuel Kant once defined the Enlightenment as "man's release from its self-imposed nonage." This immaturity, he argued, "is the inability to use one's own understanding without direction from another." For centuries, that directing force for society was often the priest, the king, or the feudal lord – figures purporting to speak for divine will. To comprehend natural events like changing seasons, people sought answers in religion. In shaping the social world, from commerce to matters of the heart, religious doctrine served as the primary guide.

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

Kant maintained that humans had the ability to think rationally. They just didn't have the confidence to employ it. With upheavals in the 18th century, a fresh era emerged: logic would replace blind faith, and the intellect, freed from authority, would become the driver of progress and a better world.

Now, 250 years later, one might question if we are slipping back into a state of intellectual immaturity. An app dictating a direction is just one example. Artificial intelligence threatens to become our contemporary authority – a unseen overseer that steers our decisions and actions. We risk relinquishing the hard-won courage to think independently – and now, not to gods or kings, but to lines of code.

The Swift Adoption and Hidden Risks of Algorithmic Reliance

ChatGPT debuted a mere three years ago, and yet a recent study found that an vast number 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 algorithms for guidance. Research suggests a significant portion of user prompts concern non-work topics. Even more striking than our reliance on AI for judgment is what occurs when we allow it speak for us. Writing is now among the most common uses for tools like ChatGPT, second only to everyday tasks. The late American author Joan Didion once remarked, “I write entirely to find out what I am thinking.” What occurs when we cease writing? Do we lose that path?

Alarmingly, some evidence suggests the outcome may be affirmative. A study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used electroencephalography to track the cognitive activity of essay writers who had access to AI, Google, or nothing. Those who could use AI displayed the least cognitive engagement and had difficulty accurately recalling their own work. Perhaps most troubling was that after a few months, participants in the AI group grew increasingly reliant, copying large sections of text.

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

Certainly, AI's attraction lies in its convenience. It is fast, minimizes work and – importantly – offers a novel way to offload responsibility. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm proposed that the rise of fascism could be understood by a human tendency to surrender autonomy in exchange for the comforting security of obedience. AI presents a modern method of relinquishing the weight of having to think and choose.

The Opacity Dilemma: Faith Over Reason

AI's greatest allure is its ability to accomplish things beyond human capability – analyzing vast datasets at unprecedented speed. Sitting in the car in Marseille, this was, after all, why I opted to trust the machine over my companion (a decision she interpreted as an affront). With access to real-time information, certainly the app had superior insight – or so I believed.

The core issue is that AI operates as a black box. It generates knowledge, but not always deepening human comprehension. We cannot fully grasp how AI reaches its decisions – even its creators admit this. Nor can we check its logic against clear, objective criteria. So when we follow AI's advice, we are not being led by logic. We are back in the realm of belief. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, side with the machine – that could be our future credo.

Harnessing Without Eroding: The Critical Balance

AI can be a powerful tool for humanity in rational inquiry. It can help medical research, liberate us from tedious tasks, or manage taxes – duties that demand little thought and are unfulfilling. 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 merely about productivity – it was a practice of liberty and human self-determination.

Human thought is often chaotic and fallible, but it compels us to debate, to question, to test ideas – and to recognize the limits of our own knowledge. It fosters confidence, both individually 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 lives, and to oppose control. It was about building a moral community grounded in the shared principle of reason and debate, rather than unquestioning acceptance.

With all the undeniable benefits AI brings, the key question remains: how can we harness its promise of superhuman intelligence without eroding human rationality, the bedrock of the Enlightenment and of free societies itself? That is likely one of the defining questions of our time. It is a question we must strive not to delegate to the algorithm.