Kentucky man becomes the first humanist granted religious exemption from AI

ranger_danger

> “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.

AndrewKemendo

> “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.

mattw2121

This is great for him until the goals given him are unachievable, in the given timelines, by human thinking and reasoning alone.

EarlKing

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.

joshstrange

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. `

injidup

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.

red_candle_wax

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!

ahmedfromtunis

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).

f6v

The problem is that you can get any kind of exemption based on religious beliefs.

giantg2

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.

simianwords

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.

ybrendany

“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" https://substack.com/home/post/p-213929165

rhedak

It is an interesting approach, but I would say his productivity is what matters.

hereme888

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.

moi2388

Whilst I’m in favour of the result, how is it possible for a humanist viewpoint to be classified as a religious belief?

SlightlyLeftPad

Precursor to the machine crusade?

sashank_1509

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.

lbrito

This is great

csours

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.

hugosama

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.