While humanism is often a non-religious philosophy or a worldview, federal courts have ruled that it qualifies as a religion.
Best part of the story
There’s no greater validation for an ideology than the state endorsing it as a religion. smh…
Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind.
Big no-no for the followers of the God Emperor of Dune or 40k.
So uh how do I make kids
Don’t make kids that are machines
Oh man you’re gonna like this part
Probably won’t stand up in the Supreme Court which only recognizes the religious rights of Christians to be bigots.
That only matters if it goes to court that high.
I am in no way religious, but every retail job I’ve had that pushes credit cards I break out the Bible verses to inform management I can’t push a credit card on any American, because there’s a verse about not charging your own people interest, and since every credit card does that, It goes against my “religious beliefs”. No manager has ever pushed back against it.
This is honestly one of the greatest uses of religious exemptions. It’s not like the store is really making that much from every individual cashier they ask to hawk credit cards. But if they did make an issue of it, and you did sue them for violating your religious rights, then they would have to pay legal fees. And even a simple legal case would likely cost them more in legal fees than they would make from many years of you hawking credit cards.
You would get more pushback if you were requesting something that required serious accommodations on the part of the company. But simply letting you not sell credit cards? That’s an easy one to get approved.
The very first sentence mentions that this takes place in the UK
Edit: actually, I think I’m wrong on that. It sounds like this is a US story
University of Kentucky (UK). No worries, mate.
TIL there are more than zero universities in Kentucky.
LOL when I read it my first impression was: Oh wow, I didn’t know UK also had a city called Kentucky, good that they pointed out it is not in US.
If there was a Kentucky in the UK then the one in the US would be called New Kentucky?
I’m from Connecticut, the town names of which* fall roughly into three categories: Native American names, biblical place names, and English names. Under the latter category, we have new Britain and new London (arguably the only two which fit that pattern, though maybe New Haven is referencing an older British city I don’t know about), but we also have Manchester, Bolton, and Glastonbury, and of course just English language words or last names, like Plainville, Plainfield, and Putnam.
*This is also true for most other New England states and probably most of the east coast, with substitution for French or Spanish (and a little Dutch) for English/British as appropriate. Actually, I could see this being mostly true everywhere in the US, with the relevant settling nationality taking over for British town names and last names, but I could also see biblical place names being less popular in some states, maybe superseded by other religious references.
There’s also a New Boston in MA right over the border from Colebrook, CT
The normal Boston in Massachusetts was originally named after the Lincolnshire village town of Saint botolph, iirc, so new Boston probably refers to a new offshoot of Boston, MA, like CT’s new Milford/new Hartford, but I’d be lying if I said I knew.
Like New Boston, right?
good that they pointed out it is not in US.
Huh? It is in the USA.
They wrote: “at the University of Kentucky (UK)”, they could write “at the University of Kentucky (a.k.a. UK)” or “at the UK (University of Kentucky)” any of those would be less ambiguous.
Countries are offset with a comma, not put in parentheses, so maybe University of Kentucky (UK), USA?
David Durman, a research administrator at the University of Kentucky (UK)
I’m with you - why abbreviate the university like that? I immediately thought the UK (United Kingdom) too. Something like “University of Kentucky (aka UK)” would’ve been helpful.
… I’m not sure if this is a joke or not.
You usually don’t have any reason to go that far anyhow, corpos don’t want to have to mount a defence and just roll over about it instead
There’s more than a few Christianist corpos out there willing to go to court to bring about their theocracy–Hobby Lobby and Chick-fil-a being two commonly cited examples.
If Scientology can get a tax exception as a religious institution, then this guy can get title 9 coverage to not use AI at work as far as I am concerned.
If it was anywhere but a university I would have also expected him to be on the short list for layoffs next round for such a choice as well.
Religion is a federally protected class. Are we not even pretending our laws work anymore?
deleted by creator
Oh FUUUUCK YES!
First of its kind
Pretty sure it isn’t.
She won a religious exemption from using AI at work. The Pope’s remarks could fuel similar appeals.
Yeah. Why isn’t this higher. Or is it somehow different?
Freedom from religion is more important than freedom of religion.
Time to apply this to financial economics.
Though it’s kinda funny that Humanism was the one to do it, it’s literally atheism with extra steps
Not really. At least to me although it seems to be similar, it’s less a focus on no god and more on being a good person and improving the lives of others. (You know, the things many religious folk think atheists are incapable of)
So, atheism, but with extra steps?
hold up. keep your torches lit.
It should be noted that while anyone can request a Title VII exemption, it will only be granted if the applicant has a deep moral conviction that could count as an article of faith. Aside from that, the law also states that the request should not place an “undue hardship on the employer’s business.” So, even though Durman is no longer personally required to use AI tools for his tasks, he is still expected to attend meetings and cooperate with colleagues who use AI or to submit materials to AI tools, as needed.
TLDR; this guy won, but you probably won’t.
I was actually thinking about this wrt healthcare access earlier. I have a genuinely religious conviction against the intimate, personal details of my condition being processed by a machine and made available online. That is the business of myself and a professional caregiver, not a tech company and whatever “partners” they feel like sharing it with. You’re supposed to be able to opt out, but practically that’s almost never possible
Anyways I know it’s in an entirely different field, but this felt like a hopeful precedent. Thanks for sharing :)
I view it more from the sacredness of the human voice and word.
Civilizations that existed closer to the invention of writing treated it a mysticism and magic. The ancient Egyptians would write on their tombs, “speak my name and I shall live again.” Words are extension of the spirit. They allow a piece of yourself to transcend time, place, and even death itself. Words have power. The words you write are a piece of your soul.
I don’t mind AI for replacing things that are not works of human expressiveness and creativity. Want to use an AI to test new compounds for potential medicinal effects? Go nuts. Want to use AI to optimize some soulless manufacturing process? Be my guest.
But no human being should ever be forced by their employer to have a machine speak for them. Or to make art for them. Or any other endeavor where genuine human artistry and creativity are involved. My words are my own. My thoughts are my own. Everything I write, for good or ill, is an extension of my own mind and spirit. And I find something deeply morally wrong about people who take the soulless words of a machine and pass them off as their own.
Imaginary religion gets exemption from imaginary technology within a society of religious privilege detached from reality.
Honestly I don’t necessarily mind giving religious exceptions since it’s part of culture which is the lifeblood of mankind, with the obvious asterisk that you shouldn’t initiate harm on your fellow man. My problem is that secular elements of culture are oft ignored for some fucken reason. In this essay I will explain why I a bloodthirsty redneck should be allowed to scalp Elon Musk for entirely acceptable cultural reasons.
Someone should forward this to Proton employees.
Cool. So the first defense we have against AI is coming from the “shit we made up long ago” corner
This is how USA has always worked.
And BAM, just like that, the term “Butlerian Humanist” was born.
Man granted first-of-its-kind religious exemption against mandatory AI use at work — Humanist argues that offloading his thinking to LLMs violates his beliefs, Title VII accommodation protects employee
Hmmm, I’ve got evidence of transhumanism going back decades. I wonder if I could argue that being forced to use poor quality weak LLMs is offensive to my people.
It’s like a car dealership having a Jesus Second Coming sale every Sunday.
I like the idea that using inferior AI is opposed. Another Transhumanist argument that seems totally fair to me, is that the goal of the current AI technology is to create sentient life by creating convincing enough interactions to make them indistigushiable from human interactions. This makes the most likely scenario one in which we create a living thinking being on par of humans but create systems of intentional slavery around them.
We aren’t there yet for me, but should enslaving a person really be a matter of taste?
