"The German philosopher Immanuel Kant famously defined the Enlightenment as man's emergence from his self-imposed immaturity. Immaturity, he wrote, is the inability to use one's understanding without guidance from another. For centuries, that other directing human thought and life was often the priest, the monarch, or the feudal lord the ones claiming to act as God's voice on Earth. In trying to understand natural phenomena why volcanoes erupt, why the seasons change humans looked to God for answers."
"Humans, Kant argued, always had the capacity for reason. They just hadn't always had the confidence to use it. But with the American and later the French Revolution, a new era was dawning: reason would replace faith, and the human mind, unshackled from authority, would become the engine of progress and a more moral world. Sapere aude! or Have courage to use your own understanding!, Kant urged his contemporaries."
A mundane driving moment—choosing between a passenger's instinct and a navigation app—illustrates a broader question of trust between human judgment and machines. Immanuel Kant defined immaturity as dependence on others for understanding and saw Enlightenment as the emergence of human reason supplanting religious and monarchical authority. Historically, people looked to priests or rulers to explain nature and guide social life. Revolutions promoted reason and personal autonomy. The rise of artificial intelligence now poses a new silent authority that can guide thoughts and actions, creating a risk of ceding hard-won courage to think for oneself.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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