You Can Now Get a Religious Exemption From Using AI at Work

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In a strongly-worded rebuke last month, Pope Francis called for AI to be “disarmed.”

The criticism comes amid rapidly growing backlash to the tech, with countless workers becoming frustrated after being forced to use AI, even when the productivity benefits it offers are questionable.

Now, a 34-year-old software engineer named Erin Maus, who works for a tech entertainment company in North Carolina, may have found an ingenious workaround. As Business Insider reports, Maus has secured a religious exemption effectively allowing her to skip using AI for her work.

Maus is a Unitarian Universalist, a pluralistic religion that’s rooted in the inherent worth of every person. In April, she argued that AI didn’t align with her religious beliefs, citing environmental and ethical concerns.

In mid-May, her employer granted her the unusual accommodation.

“I’m writing my code and reviewing my code by hand, which seems crazy to say,” she told BI. “Just two years ago, how else would you do it?”

While Maus may not be a member of the Catholic Church, Pope Francis’ most recent calls for stronger AI controls highlights a growing schism between religious beliefs and the broad intrusion of AI into everyday life.

That’s not to mention the very real concerns over increased pollution and rampant water usage, environmentally damaging side effects that have raised plenty of non-faith-based objections as well. The opposition, particularly against data centers, has grown into a major bipartisan issue.

Netizens were amused by Maus’ religious exemption.

“The funniest possible outcome of the AI mandate era is about to be HR departments discovering that ‘sincerely held religious belief’ under Title VII has a much lower bar than they assumed, and Pope Leo handed every Catholic employee a written excuse,” tweeted San Francisco-based startup founder Corey Quinn. (Title VII of the Civil Rights Act prohibits employment discrimination and retaliation based on race, color, national origin, religion, and sex.)

According to BI, the Unitarian Universalist Association doesn’t have a firm stance on the use of AI yet but is currently developing a policy.

Other employers could soon face similar opposition from their AI-opposed staffers as well, especially now that Maus has opened the floodgates.

And they may just have a chance of securing these exemptions. Dismissing these requests could land employers in hot water, considering legal precedents and COVID-19 era vaccine mandates dealing courts with an onslaught of litigation involving religious accommodations in the workplace.

Employers “might have to promulgate some rules about this very quickly,” as workplace discrimination specialist John Meehan told BI. “If I were one of the bigger defense-side employment firms, I’d be doing that right now.”

Meanwhile, Maus found that completing her coding tasks without AI was just as quick as her colleague, who used AI, telling the publication that “AI doesn’t really seem to be this game changer.”

“Your principles matter,” she added.

More on AI ethics: There’s a Mass Rebellion Against AI in the Workplace

The post You Can Now Get a Religious Exemption From Using AI at Work appeared first on Futurism.

IN the summer of 2019, I was seated in the wine cellar of a walled Medieval town high above the Dordogne Valley of France, not far from Sarlat-la-Canéda, making phone calls, writing reports. I have given this story in other places and it appears as though you’re about to hear it again. Rob Skiba is a name you that you might be familiar with. Though he had made a name for himself as a Nephilim researcher, more recently Rob had taken a dive into the deep end of the pool via flat earth research. The recorded interviews I conducted between he and Rick Hummer, a fellow flat earth investigator and close friend of his, was published while still occupying that very wine cellar. Read all about it. Chicago Is Not a Mirage.

Word quickly spread. Within a few short weeks, dozens of flat earth researchers began accepting my invite for a private interview, if not a series of interviews. From a 17th-century tower built by King Louis XIV, and with a stunning view of the Alps, I sat down with Robbie Davidson, founder of the Flat Earth International Conferences, conducting multiple sessions. While staying in Dumfries, Scotland, David Weiss agreed to take part in the interviews, as did Bob Knodel of Globebusters. There were others. But when I asked the interviewees to discuss the moments that shaped their lives, among the many PSYOPs, false flag attacks, and hoaxes that were discussed, only these men committed commentary to the false 9/11 narrative.

The resulting recordings ballooned into The Unexpected Cosmology, a book which became a website and was even intended as an anthology. And of course, the following discourse was originally a chapter. It was Walt Disney who stated, “Disneyland will never be completed. It will continue to grow as long as there is imagination left in the world.” Those sentiments remain applicable here as well. American Sensationalism: The 9/11 Interviews was always intended to be expanded upon with the inclusion of new researchers. So I’m sorry to say the project became stagnant during the Covid-19 psychodrama. I took a break to tackle other projects. We lost Rob Skiba. Rob offered hours of private conversation regarding his life but we never got around to the big one. 9/11. It was in the cards. Sadly, Bob Knodel died soon afterwards. Voices are being squeezed from an entire generation. Gnosis passes with them.

In the aftermath, the FE community became fractured. People began going their separate ways. Robbie Davidson, among a noted few others who were interviewed for the project, got up and left the movement altogether. It is not my intent to erase his or the contributions of others if only brief. They came, they went, their testimonies remain.

The original vision may have hit roadblocks but it is not forgotten. I expanded this paper a few years later to include testimony from author Pauly Hart, a dear friend of mine. I had wanted to continue that trend every year thereafter but you know how it goes. For the 25th anniversary of the attack I have redirected my efforts to its first large scale expansion, including Andrew Hoy and Darrin Geisinger into the mix. Perhaps others will lend their experiences to the recorder in time.

The following is their report.

Read the 9/11 Interviews

Watch the Interviews