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

This past summer, I found myself navigating in gridlocked traffic on the scorching streets of Marseille. At a crossing, my friend in the front seat suggested a right turn toward a famous spot for bouillabaisse. However, the navigation app on my phone instructed us to continue straight. Weary and in a stifling car, I heeded the app's directive. Moments later, we were stranded at a roadwork site.

A seemingly trivial event, perhaps. But one that captures a defining dilemma of our era, where digital tools permeates almost every aspect of our lives: who gets our trust more – fellow humans and our own intuition, or the machine?

A Call for Intellectual Maturity and Our Modern Relapse

The renowned German philosopher Immanuel Kant once defined the Enlightenment as "humanity's emergence from its self-imposed nonage." This state, he wrote, "is the inability to use one's own understanding without direction from an external source." For ages, that directing force for society was frequently the priest, the monarch, or the feudal lord – figures purporting to channel God's voice. To explain natural events like changing seasons, people looked for explanations in theology. In organizing the social world, from economics to love, religious doctrine served as the main compass.

“Sapere aude!” or “Have courage to use your own understanding!”

Kant argued that humans had the ability to think rationally. They just didn't have the confidence to employ it. With revolutions in the 18th century, a fresh era emerged: logic would replace superstition, and the human mind, liberated from authority, would become the driver of advancement and a more ethical world.

Now, two and a half centuries later, one might wonder if we are quietly regressing into a form of dependency. An app dictating a driving route is merely the start. Artificial intelligence threatens to become our new "other" – a unseen overseer that steers our choices and behaviors. We are in danger of ceding the hard-won autonomy to reason for ourselves – 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 recent study found that an vast number of people had used AI 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 queries relate to non-work topics. Even more intriguing than our reliance on AI for judgment is what happens when we let it express for us. Writing is now among the most common uses for generative AI, second only to everyday tasks. The late American author Joan Didion once remarked, “I write entirely to find out what I am thinking.” What transpires when we stop composing? Do we lose that path?

Alarmingly, some evidence hints the answer may be affirmative. A study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used brain monitoring to track the mental engagement of essay writers who had could use AI, Google, or nothing. Those who could use AI showed the least brain activity and had difficulty quoting their own work. Perhaps most troubling was that after a few months, individuals in the AI group became progressively lazier, copying entire blocks of text.

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

Of course, AI's appeal stems from its convenience. It saves time, minimizes work and – critically – offers a novel way 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 surrender autonomy in for the sake of the reassuring certainty of subordination. AI offers a modern method of surrendering the burden of having to decide for oneself.

The Opacity Dilemma: Faith Over Reason

AI's greatest allure is its ability to accomplish things beyond our minds – analyzing vast datasets at lightning pace. Sitting in the car in Marseille, this was, after all, why I opted to trust the machine over my companion (a decision she took as an insult). With access to all the data, certainly the algorithm must know best – or so I believed.

The fundamental problem is that AI operates as a opaque system. It generates knowledge, but not always fostering human understanding. We do not truly know the process behind its conclusions – even its programmers acknowledge the opacity. Nor can we verify its logic against transparent standards. So when we follow AI's advice, 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 future guiding principle.

Using Without Losing: The Essential Challenge

AI can be a formidable ally for mankind in rational inquiry. It can help inventing drugs, liberate us from "bullshit jobs", or manage administrative chores – duties that demand little thought and are unfulfilling. This is beneficial. But Kant and his contemporaries did not champion enlightenment just so humans could assemble better furniture or have more leisure. Independent thought was not just about productivity – it was a discipline of liberty and human self-determination.

Human thought is often chaotic and fallible, but it compels us to debate, to question, to challenge concepts – and to acknowledge the limits of our own understanding. It fosters confidence, both individually and as a society. For Kant, the use of reason was never only about information; it was about empowering people to become agents of their own lives, and to oppose domination. It was about building a moral community grounded in the shared principle of reason and debate, rather than unquestioning acceptance.

With all the advantages AI offers, the key question remains: how can we harness its potential of advanced capability without eroding human rationality, 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 must strive not to outsource to the machine.