University of Kentucky research administrator David Durman has won a landmark victory: he has been officially exempted from the mandatory use of artificial intelligence at work. The man argued that outsourcing mental labor to algorithms violates his beliefs as a humanist.
University of Kentucky research administrator David Durman has won a landmark victory: he has been officially exempted from the mandatory use of artificial intelligence at work. The man argued that outsourcing mental labor to algorithms violates his beliefs as a humanist.
The university granted the employee a waiver under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which protects employees from discrimination based on religion and requires employers to accommodate their beliefs. While humanism is a secular worldview, U.S. federal courts have recognized it as a valid religious belief in the context of employment law, Tom's Hardware reports .
Durman said that when university leadership encouraged employees to implement tools like ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot, he felt it would force him to delegate his own thinking to machine code.
"The process and work involved in thinking about situations, my work, my ethics, and my interactions with other people is a key component of my development as a moral person. Transferring that work to an AI, no matter how difficult, undermines my ability to be a moral agent," Durman said in a comment to Religion News Service.
The American Humanist Association (AHA) represented the employee. Alexandria Huiskens, a lawyer for the organization, stressed that this is the first such case to be brought to light: “This is the first precedent of its kind for the AHA and humanism in general to acquit those who consider the use of AI to be an infringement on freedom of conscience. For us, humanism is a holistic way of life built on intrinsic value and dignity. Everyone should be able to implement it in the workplace just as Christians or Muslims do.”
Under US law, religious exemption is granted only if there are strong moral convictions and provided that it does not create an “undue burden” on the employer’s business.
So, while Durman is no longer required to personally use AI tools to complete his tasks, he still has to attend work meetings and interact with colleagues who are using AI or upload materials there as needed.
According to research, about half of American employees already use AI in some way in the workplace. Durman himself hopes that his example will help other professionals who do not want to work with algorithms for reasons of their own conscience.
