She won a religious exemption from using AI at work(businessinsider.com)
businessinsider.com
She won a religious exemption from using AI at work
https://www.businessinsider.com/worker-got-religious-exemption-using-ai-at-work-2026-6
19 comments
The Butlerian Jihad begins
(Some people say there is a paywall. I do not get a paywall; the article is displayed, although it also says that it is only available to subscribers but then the article is displayed without needing to subscribe.)
I would not use LLM and generative AI systems in my programming, for several reasons.
If you can do it better without the AI, then you should not be forced to use it anyways, or tracked for using it. (Even if you only track the statistics, and how much time it takes, that is not sufficient because you must figure out if the result is actually good, and any other related issues, including e.g. costs and energy usage, testing (not all kind of testing could be automated), kinds of statistical bias, etc.)
In general, not all kind of religious exemptions would mean you would be able to do the job, but in this case the exemption is reasonable if she is competent at computers; you shouldn't need the AI systems to do it even if they insist that you should. If they have a religious exemption they should show that they could still do that job or else to leave that job (rather than being forced or coerced).
Thare are both religious and non-religious objections (as well as people of the same religions who would not be opposed, since they are different people even if religion are same; there are also some more nuanced opinions). (There are more religious objections than only Unitarian Universalists and Catholics; I have looked and found some opinions by people of a few other religions, and there are probably more than that too. Different people can also have different opinions regardless of whether or not you are religious or of a same or similar kind of religion.)
I would not use LLM and generative AI systems in my programming, for several reasons.
If you can do it better without the AI, then you should not be forced to use it anyways, or tracked for using it. (Even if you only track the statistics, and how much time it takes, that is not sufficient because you must figure out if the result is actually good, and any other related issues, including e.g. costs and energy usage, testing (not all kind of testing could be automated), kinds of statistical bias, etc.)
In general, not all kind of religious exemptions would mean you would be able to do the job, but in this case the exemption is reasonable if she is competent at computers; you shouldn't need the AI systems to do it even if they insist that you should. If they have a religious exemption they should show that they could still do that job or else to leave that job (rather than being forced or coerced).
Thare are both religious and non-religious objections (as well as people of the same religions who would not be opposed, since they are different people even if religion are same; there are also some more nuanced opinions). (There are more religious objections than only Unitarian Universalists and Catholics; I have looked and found some opinions by people of a few other religions, and there are probably more than that too. Different people can also have different opinions regardless of whether or not you are religious or of a same or similar kind of religion.)
I wonder if, some day, people will request exemptions from being productive at work.
Seems like she has.
People were plenty productive before AI burst onto the scene. Wanting to not have AI shoved down your throat doesn't suddenly make someone "not productive". What an utterly assinine take. Thank you for being Exhibit A for why everyone hates the AI bros.
I was productive for 25+ years before AI, now I'm more productive because of it. At this point in time, you can do all the software engineering and programming and design yourself, and at worst an agent will be able to literally just type it out faster than you can. I've typed 100 WPM average since I learned how to use a computer, 135+ at a burst, and when I need to type a ton of code that I already understand fully, agents are faster. She doesn't have to outsource her thinking, but this decision will show up on her metrics to her employer whether it's for religious reasons or not.
You wouldn't call a carpenter using electric tools a "Power Tool Bro". I didn't hear of anybody using autocomplete called an "Intellisense Bro". If a someone worked for a shop and refused to use lithium-ion batteries for religious reasons in favor of their hand-crank drill, they would be less productive, and the shop would be better off hiring an equivalently talented carpenter with a modern skillset and fewer arbitrary hangups. That's the level of absurdity on display with this comparison.
She's just using religion as so many ill-intentioned people do - an appeal to authority to justify behavior she intrinsically wanted to act out anyway, and becoming a burden to others in the process.
You wouldn't call a carpenter using electric tools a "Power Tool Bro". I didn't hear of anybody using autocomplete called an "Intellisense Bro". If a someone worked for a shop and refused to use lithium-ion batteries for religious reasons in favor of their hand-crank drill, they would be less productive, and the shop would be better off hiring an equivalently talented carpenter with a modern skillset and fewer arbitrary hangups. That's the level of absurdity on display with this comparison.
She's just using religion as so many ill-intentioned people do - an appeal to authority to justify behavior she intrinsically wanted to act out anyway, and becoming a burden to others in the process.
“Unitarian Universalist, said she proposed the special treatment in April, citing environmental and ethical objections to AI that don't align with her religious beliefs”
Ummm… Unitarians in general do not believe in anything specific, so this seems arbitrary but don’t worry she will probably be fired for underperforming soon anyway
This is the dumbest timeline…
Ummm… Unitarians in general do not believe in anything specific, so this seems arbitrary but don’t worry she will probably be fired for underperforming soon anyway
This is the dumbest timeline…
It would be great if people started to claim religious exemptions from making money for oligarchs and politicians. We would see this dumb rule gone in an instant.
> "I'm writing my code and reviewing my code by hand, which seems crazy to say," said the 34-year-old, who lives in North Carolina and works for a large tech-entertainment company that she described as progressive. "Just two years ago, how else would you do it?"
Imagine working with this person. At a certain point you just can't do the job. What if a religious Jew wants to work at a butcher shop and refuses the handle pork. Why does everyone feel like they're entitled to do a particular job, making everyone else's life considerably more difficult
Imagine working with this person. At a certain point you just can't do the job. What if a religious Jew wants to work at a butcher shop and refuses the handle pork. Why does everyone feel like they're entitled to do a particular job, making everyone else's life considerably more difficult
It’s kinda worse than that - an Orthodox Jew would, by long-standing traditions and teachings, not be expected to touch pork. The same beliefs that make this person object to using AI could easily apply to any cloud-scale service dependent on data centers.
Like say… Google search (the old non-AI one)
Like say… Google search (the old non-AI one)
Yeah and it's actually possible to avoid pork if you need to. If she wanted to actually stand by her beliefs at this point she'd have to go live in the woods.
Not a good comparison because so many differences between both stories. Also a practicing Jew or Muslim would not work in that kind of butchery serving non kosher meat in the first place, you're trying to delude other people.
Right like someone that doesn't want to work with computers wouldn't work as a programmer. Do you see it now?
Imagine you ask someone "Can you hand me the butter please? That would be very kind." and they respond "Why does everyone in the world want to have all the butter that ever existed in this very instant?!", and then you ask them what they do for a living while chewing on your dry bread, and they say oh, I write software for pacemakers.
???? You can code without ai bud. Leave the frummies out of this. What does kashrut have to do with ai.