Your boss can require AI at work. But what if your conscience says no? A university worker tested that question, and he won. David Durman is a research administrator at the University of Kentucky. When the university started encouraging staff to use AI tools, from Copilot for notes to ChatGPT, Durman worried about what he would lose by handing his thinking to a machine. In August, with help from the American Humanist Association, he asked for a religious exemption. A humanist, he argued that letting AI do work that requires human judgment, listening, and personal responsibility would diminish human dignity. His phrase was an abdication of human moral agency. On September 25, the university granted it, finding no undue burden on his department. Federal law requires employers to accommodate sincerely held religious beliefs, including nontheistic ones, unless that causes undue hardship. Durman is not alone. Earlier this year, a Unitarian Universalist software engineer won a similar exemption over AI's environmental impact. The window is open now because AI is still new at work and hardship is hard to prove. But as AI gets woven deeper into every job, that window narrows. The right to say no to the machine is real today. Use it while it means something.
Sources: Fast Company, He got a religious exemption from using AI at work. Maybe you can too
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