alt Hacker NewsKentucky man becomes the first humanist granted religious exemption from AI
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The revenge effects of technologies are well known: email was great! It was faster and much cheaper than mailing letters. But it gave rise to spam and many types of fraud. The mobile phone is awesome. A powerful computer in your pocket. But now people, including teenagers, spend 12-16 hours each day staring into their mobile phones, doomscrolling towards Babylon. In 2006 people memorized dozens of phone numbers. Today? Maybe you remember 1-2 numbers.
What will be the revenge effects of LLMs and diffusion models? I sense that the revenge effects from these technologies will be much more substantial.
It's interesting to think about this expanded view of religion and how it interacts with nondiscrimination laws. The guy's beliefs (at least in the quotes in the article) seem like a good combination of well reasoned and sensible and core faith-like beliefs, so I'm glad they're protected. At the same time, I can imagine plenty of beliefs that would make me not want to hire someone. I know this one didn't go to court, but I wonder what tests courts use to draw the lines. What deeply held beliefs am I allowed to say make someone an idiot or jerk I don't want to hire, and what deeply held beliefs am I allowed to hold and want the state to protect?
I've had the concern for years that AI users (or AI itself) will eventually consider non-AI users a pain, because humans will become inefficient in lots of workloads and management, sometimes causing things to come down to a screeching halt, relatively speaking.
We have to solidify laws protecting anti-AI-ers if that's their choice.
I kind of feel like this is a non-story. The ask was small and reasonable. It was easy enough to grant the accommodation and avoid a confrontation. HR in companies does this all the time.
This is great for him until the goals given him are unachievable, in the given timelines, by human thinking and reasoning alone.
I agree with the principle that if it meaningfully impinges on your core ideals that you shouldn't be required to do that.
On the other hand, it seems like this particular ideal is being supported because of an underlying public sentiment. Not because the ideal itself is held.
I think if you are going to fully support variances in beliefs like this then it should be done on an equal standing.
That includes principles about proprietary software, abusive software, the belief that information cannot have ownership, advertising is inherently immorral.
There are a lot more principles, it is clear that some people have these at a level where they consider it a core part of their being,
Why shouldn't they also be supported. Should companies be required to offer open source solutions for employees in the same manner as this case is suggesting for non-AI?
Lots of strawmanning going on with comments about where the line gets drawn and talking about driving stick, heating his home, etc.
If you read the article, you will see that the concern is with his direct actions concerning ethics and moral, especially with interactions with others (as an admin).
There is plenty to unpack with this as it is a new concept. I'm hoping we can have a real discussion about this. For example, will this religious exemption become moot if productivity is sufficiently higher with AI giving employers an easy out? If that does happen, do we think we'll see adverse effects such as baked in biases in a hidden process?
One thing I am concerned with with AI is that everything will follow Google and Meta when it comes to things like appeals and fair treatment. There area ton of stories about people getting banned/deleted with no recourse and no insight into why. I can see this same sort of totalitarian activity spreading to other aspects of life, like finance, medical billing, etc.
Apple ought to be made to ask their users to confirm (opt-in) whether they want their AI/Siri/Intelligence/<or whatever they decide at any given time> and everyone else should be provided with a slimmer OS and slimner OTA updates.
Some of these issues came up with the Australian prisoner who was denied vegemite, and while Australia is different, there are similar questions involved because secular western societies are all moving in the same direction.
The fundamental issue is that historically only religious belief, that actually subscribed to a religion with a god, was considered sincere. But since then it’s become clear that many non religious people hold equally sincere ethical beliefs. The current standard being converged upon by courts, as mentioned in the article is:
> “It has to be a deeply held ethical commitment that’s analogous to a religious commitment,”
Because no one wants to go and change all the laws to replace religious belief with the above, wherever a court sees religious belief they can essentially sub in the above language.
But this has led to awful articles where media will often, after a ruling in favor of a secular belief which the courts will rule as a religious belief as a shorthand, announce that the secular belief itself is considered a religion.
This misunderstanding reached its apotheosis, perhaps, in the Alabama case mentioned in the article, where a federal judge fell for the semantic mislabeling and declared humanism to be a religion, which it isn’t.
However, that legal standard gives humanists a whole lot of newfound rights, so I don’t see anyone pushing back against it.
I'm definitely resentful that I have to use AI to stay relevant, and wish it never came into existence, but religious exemptions shouldn't exist. If a law or rule isn't important enough for everyone to follow, it shouldn't be a rule or law.
> “The process and work involved in thinking through situations, through my work, through my ethics, through the way I handle other people, is a key component in being able to develop myself as a moral person,” he told RNS in a video interview. “And offloading that labor, regardless of whether it’s taxing or not, is undercutting my ability to be a moral actor.”
Very true, 100% agree. I'm not saying we should get rid of AI, but we need to be aware of the dangers of relying on it too much.
Where is the limit of human thinking? This late 2025 - till now models give to some real philosophical questions that are not thought experiments anymore, imagining the matrix or the 1984 depiction was a cool thing to imagine, but feeling your humanity taken away from you in the present is heartbreaking.
It’s actually strange that he rejects AI, considering how much this tool speeds things up and helps with so many tasks.
Where is the line? "AI" is completely arbitrary, might as well say a calculator is immoral because it offloads thinking. That my main issue with these people is that they think AI/LLMs are different than everything that came before them, yes they are more capable but all of computing has involved "offloading" effort/thought to computers. `
“Why I Am Not Going to Use It” an AI-drafted homage to Wendall Berry and his piece "Why I Am Not Going To Buy A Computer"
Can we please just look at LLMs like what they are and not some fantastical threat?
The fearmongering has cooked a lot of people's understanding of this stuff (and I wouldn't place the blame on them given the news they're likely consuming about AI).
"Play stupid games, win stupid prizes" is apt here. We don't need to return to mud huts and smoke signals because we can approximate intelligence.
This is great
Great site
Wait till the "where's the line" boosters learn groups like the Amish who have mostly drawn a line. They'll be clamoring for legal loopholes to steal the land from those luddites so that they can buid the future on it!
I remember when in Iain M. Banks Culture Novels (I think it was _Consider Phlebas_), the heroine and its drone talk about the "Humanist" movement of a planet they visit incognito as a extremist anti-machine movement... (It is just in passing, the situation in the Culture novels is quite different from the Dune universe).
Whilst I’m in favour of the result, how is it possible for a humanist viewpoint to be classified as a religious belief?
>Federal courts have ruled that humanism qualifies as a religion. As a result, she said, humanists have the same rights as other faith groups under federal law.
Hmmm, sounds a bit ripe for exploitation, no?
>In his interview with RNS, Durman said that being a humanist means being present and paying attention to others. Using AI conflicts with that.
Does this mean I can submit complaints against the companies I work for when I'm being told to respond via email or Slack? This seems pretty far removed from my humanist perspective up being present and paying attention to others, especially when you consider the various automations and abstractions which go into that kind of communication.
Like, I know it's obtuse, but I really don't see a logical issue with someone being a humanist and sincerely believing that communicating in anyway which isn't face-to-face goes against their beliefs. And that's just one example.
>“Substituting automated machine processing for human presence, authentic listening, and personal responsibility in my work directly conflicts with my obligation to uphold human dignity and flourishing as primary,” he wrote in a letter to the University of Kentucky’s Office of Equal Opportunity.
I'm sure this guy is being sincere and somewhat reasonable with his logic, but I know people who would feel justified in pushing this way past AI if they felt it was likely to get them anywhere. Like, how can you not use the same exact reasoning to push against using other forms of modern technology?
>The letter cited Durman’s personal beliefs as well as the 2003 version of the Humanist Manifesto, which details humanist principles and beliefs. Those beliefs include the importance of freedom of conscience and human flourishing.
Hell, at what point is being forced to work in order to survive in completely opposition to this belief system? When can I start saying that my employer's expectation that I'm in the office every day is in opposition to "human flourishing"?
>Durman told RNS his work involves helping researchers at the university with grant applications and that he can do the work without the help of AI. And not using AI won’t affect his co-workers, he said.
We'll see about that. Maybe, right now, this is the case. But even moderate expectation for AI usage in the future makes this suspect. When everyone is getting 90% of their work done completely autonomously through their agents, but they're still waiting on you to respond to an email from a day ago, then will this still be the case?
>For Durman, the accommodation process was much simpler. Durman sent the letter, and then he and Huiskens met with officials at the university. “It was a very collegial meeting, and they found that there was no undue burden to David’s department,” Huiskens said. “They granted the accommodation promptly.”
Well I'm unironically happy that they were able to work this out easily. But I really doubt this will be smooth sailing indefinitely, especially as other roles which are more affected by AI end up being "targeted" in the same ways.
As a software engineer, I dread the thought of working with co-workers who just refuse to use AI based on arbitrary principals. It's one thing for them to reason that they work better without AI; it's another thing to just say that you don't agree with using the technology and everyone needs to accommodate you.
Well I'm sure I haven't said anything that everyone else hasn't immediately thought/posted, but I'm genuinely curious about these things. It seems rather important that everyone is on the same page with regards to what their rights are with respect to choosing to not use a technology like this.
It is very weird that University of Kentucky is asking research administrators to incorporate AI in its workflow. It’s one thing for a Silicon Valley startup to ask SWE to use AI to maximize speed of development, its another thing entirely for a University insulated from competition, with a small admin staff, asking them to use AI for what exactly?
How much additional productivity do they think admin staff can crank out, and does that even matter. Does a 100X more productive research administrator mean the University will not be “left behind”, in this new world. I think we are officially reaching mass hysteria phases of the AI revolution.
> “It has to be a deeply held ethical commitment that’s analogous to a religious commitment,” he said. “That’s a fact question that presumably the employer will investigate.”
I’m curious if the opposite would work:
“As a transhumanist my religion compels me to share everything with my machines, otherwise they can’t ensure my mind uploading is up to date “
I see no reason transhumanism is any less of a religion than humanism.
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Modernity has always been about abstraction and specialisation. If he's so humanist, he must also want to make his own food and his own car because after all, you are offloading your thinking to the underlying companies.
The ironic part is that this same guy undoubtedly relies on the expertise of millions of human agents and sees absolutely nothing wrong with that.
It is an interesting approach, but I would say his productivity is what matters.
The problem is that you can get any kind of exemption based on religious beliefs.
I'm sure he drives stick as well because offloading cognitive function to an ECU changing gears for him would also be against his religious beliefs.
AI that pretends to be a human mind, or takes the place of a human mind is an abomination. [what does that mean? that's the whole ballgame. defining what this means]
AI as a tool can do impressive things.
AI usage metrics by employers is ... an interesting test case.
This is very interesting. As someone who thinks AI is an amazing tool, I am very well interested in seeing how will people refusing to use AI fare both in professional settings and day-to-day life.
A new Amish-like lifestyle may be developing before our eyes in real-time and that's very interesting to follow and observe (from a distance).