Win For Humans? – Kentucky Professor Becomes First Human to Receive Religious Exemption from Being Forced to Use AI at Work

RNS – As a humanist, David Durman believes in the importance of the human part of life. That means making his own decisions and making sure his work helps people flourish.

When the University of Kentucky, where the 45-year-old works as a research administrator, started asking employees to use AI in their workflow, he got worried. Durman felt he was being asked to offload his thinking to tools like Microsoft Teams Copilot, Claude and ChatGPT bots in his day-to-day work.

That felt like a violation of his beliefs, he said.

With the help of the American Humanist Association, he asked for an accommodation under Title VII, a federal law that allows employees to ask for a change in their work requirements to comply with religious belief.

In September, the university agreed and granted him a religious accommodation, meaning he does not have to use AI to complete his work. 

Officials at the American Humanist Association believe it’s the first case of a humanist being granted an AI exemption.

“This is the first of its kind at the AHA and for humanism generally to exempt those who see AI use as flying in the face of their freedom of conscience,” Alexandria Huiskens, a staff attorney at the American Humanist Association, told RNS.

As a 100% certified human being, I would like to say: Sure? I guess?

On one hand, I often think it's bullshit when people invoke "religious beliefs" to get out of certain things when they're obviously bending the spirit of the law. Like, you can't make up a religion and that says you have to drink 12 beers every day at lunch, slap the Constitution down on your boss's desk, and expect him to honor it. That's absurd. Not everything you want to do can fall under the First Amendment. 

I honestly don't even know if people respect "humanist" as a religion? Are there a lot of humanists out there? Is anybody reading this a humanist? Have you ever met one? Am I technically a humanist by being pro-human? What day do they worship (or not worship)? Who is their god? I suppose they probably don't have a god. Unless it's like... the first monkey or something. Or however far back that evolution picture goes. 

I like to think this Kentucky professor doesn't give a shit about being a humanist at all, and that he just fucking hates AI. I'm kind of with him. I hypocritically shit on AI in blogs all the time (even though I use it whenever it's convenient). But a lot of times, AI is the fucking worst. The potential implications of it are terrifying. If Dave Portnoy all of a sudden told us "You HAVE to use AI to edit your blogs!", it would piss me off. Even if I know it would improve my writing. Even if I know it's a good idea. Nobody wants to be told they HAVE to do something. Especially when that something is a something that's responsible for bullshit like this. 

Note: I like how people in the AI fruit-people universe only get a number added to their forehead if they got fucked, but not when they did the fucking. It would be funny to know every time you have sex (via forehead number) if the universe thinks you "fucked" or "got fucked". 

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Anyways… if a random Kentucky professor is able to use Freedom of Religion as a way to avoid using AI… I mean… I'm sure it makes his job harder. But in general, I'm all for any ruling that throws an obstacle in the way of AI's success.

I'll chalk this up as a win for humans. Because if all else fails, and someone in your life is trying to force you to use AI when you don't fucking feel like it, apparently there's legal action you can take against them. At least in Kentucky. As long as you pretend to really care about being a humanist.