Our King, Our Priest, Our Feudal Lord – How AI Is Taking Us Back to the Medieval Era.

This past summer, I was caught in congested traffic on the sweltering streets of Marseille. At a crossing, my friend in the front seat advised a right turn toward a renowned spot for fish soup. Yet, the navigation app on my phone commanded us to go forward. Fatigued and overheated, I heeded the algorithm's directive. Minutes later, we were stuck at a construction site.

A minor event, maybe. But one that encapsulates a central question of our era, where technology permeates nearly every facet of existence: who gets our trust to a greater degree – other people and our personal instincts, or the algorithm?

The Enlightenment's Promise and Our Modern Relapse

The influential German philosopher Immanuel Kant once defined the Enlightenment as "humanity's emergence from its self-inflicted immaturity." This immaturity, he argued, "is the incapacity to use one's own understanding without guidance from an external source." For centuries, that guiding "other" for society was frequently the clergyman, the monarch, or the feudal lord – entities purporting to channel divine will. To comprehend phenomena like changing seasons, people sought answers in theology. In organizing the fabric of society, from economics to love, faith acted as the primary guide.

“Sapere aude!” or “Have courage to use your reason!”

Kant maintained that humans always possessed the ability to think rationally. They simply lacked the boldness to employ it. With revolutions in America and France, a new dawn emerged: logic would supplant blind faith, and the human mind, liberated from authority, would become the driver of progress and a more ethical world.

Now, two and a half centuries later, one might wonder if we are quietly regressing into a form of intellectual immaturity. An app dictating a driving route is just one example. Artificial intelligence threatens to become our contemporary authority – a unseen overseer that influences our decisions and behaviors. We are in danger of ceding the historically earned courage to reason for ourselves – and now, not to gods or kings, but to lines of code.

The Swift Adoption and Hidden Risks of Algorithmic Reliance

ChatGPT was launched a mere three years ago, and yet a recent study indicated that an overwhelming majority of people had engaged with artificial intelligence in the previous six months. Whether deciding on ending a relationship or selecting a vote, individuals are looking to algorithms for guidance. Data suggests a significant portion of user queries concern non-work topics. Even more striking than our reliance on AI for advice is what occurs when we allow it express for us. Composition is now one of the most common uses for tools like ChatGPT, second only to practical requests. The late American author Joan Didion once remarked, “I write entirely to discover what I am thinking.” What occurs when we stop composing? Do we cease discovering?

Alarmingly, some evidence suggests the outcome may be yes. A study conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used electroencephalography to track the cognitive activity of participants who had access to AI, Google, or nothing. Those who could rely on AI showed the least cognitive engagement and had trouble quoting their own work. Maybe most troubling was that over time, individuals in the AI group became progressively lazier, pasting entire blocks of text.

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

Of course, AI's attraction stems from its convenience. It is fast, reduces effort and – importantly – offers a novel way to abdicate responsibility. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm argued that the appeal of authoritarianism could be partly explained by a preference to surrender autonomy in exchange for the reassuring certainty of obedience. AI presents a modern avenue for relinquishing the burden of having to think and choose.

The Black Box Problem: Faith Over Reason

AI's greatest allure is its capacity to accomplish things outside our minds – analyzing oceans of data at lightning pace. Sitting in the car in Marseille, this was, after all, why I chose to trust the machine over my friend (a decision she interpreted as an insult). With knowledge of real-time information, certainly the app must know best – or so I believed.

The core issue is that AI is a black box. It produces answers, but without necessarily 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 back in the realm of belief. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, side with the machine – that could be our 21st-century guiding principle.

Using Without Losing: The Essential Challenge

AI can be a formidable ally for mankind in rational inquiry. It can aid in inventing drugs, liberate us from tedious tasks, or handle 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 assemble better furniture or have more leisure. Independent thought was not merely about efficiency – it was a discipline of freedom and human self-determination.

Human thought is inherently messy and fallible, but it forces us to argue, to question, to test ideas – and to acknowledge the limits of our own understanding. It builds confidence, both individually and collectively. For Kant, the exercise of reason was never only about information; it was about enabling people to become authors of their own lives, and to oppose domination. It was about creating a ethical society based on the common foundation of rational discourse, rather than unquestioning acceptance.

With all the undeniable benefits AI offers, the key question is this: how can we leverage its potential of advanced capability without undermining human reasoning, the bedrock of the Enlightenment and of free societies themselves? That is likely one of the defining questions of our time. It is a question we must strive not to outsource to the machine.