{"id":19376,"date":"2026-10-30T07:19:15","date_gmt":"2026-10-30T07:19:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/?p=19376"},"modified":"2026-10-30T07:19:15","modified_gmt":"2026-10-30T07:19:15","slug":"as-bosses-push-workers-to-use-ai-a-kentucky-man-found-a-way-to-opt-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/?p=19376","title":{"rendered":"As bosses push workers to use AI, a Kentucky man found a way to opt out"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

As a teenager, David Durman would read works by Enlightenment philosopher David Hume and the Stoics. Their ideas led him to adopt the Humanist faith, a nontheist system he said centers human well-being and flourishing, which he\u2019s kept for 30 years.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Because Humanism\u2019s emphasis is on moral responsibility for one\u2019s choices, the now 45-year-old administrator at the University of Kentucky felt uncomfortable by the \u201cgrowing normalization\u201d of AI products and systems at work, where colleagues and leadership offered \u201cmounting suggestions\u201d of how to use the tools and floated the idea of going to conventions to learn more about AI. For Durman\u2014who disables Gemini on his Google searches and generally disables as many AI features as he can\u2014surrendering any tasks to the technology chafes against what he sees as the goals of his faith.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cTo me, the offloading of any decision-making capacity or ability to interpret the world around you\u2014including what\u2019s true, what\u2019s not true, what\u2019s going on with the world\u2014reduces your ability to act towards those goals,\u201d Durman told Fortune.\u00a0<\/p>\n

While the University of Kentucky doesn\u2019t yet have an AI directive, Durman said he wanted to preempt \u201cany work environment move towards an actual requirement.\u201d In August, he filed an accommodation request under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act\u2014which protects religious views and nontheistic ones\u2014to the university to be exempt from AI usage with the help of his attorney Alexandria Huiskens, who works with the American Humanist Association.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen David reached out to us, I think we were both in agreement that we see AI as potentially displacing human judgment, reason, responsibility,\u201d Huiskens told Fortune. \u201cA lot of Humanists don\u2019t realize that they can approach their employer with this kind of exemption or accommodation, so when David reached out, I was thrilled.\u201d<\/p>\n

The University of Kentucky arranged a meeting with Durman and Huiskens, in which they discussed the sincerity of his views, and then granted his request on Sept. 25, determining that accommodating his beliefs under Title VII didn\u2019t impose an \u201cundue hardship\u201d on the institution. Employers face a higher bar for denying religious accommodations since the 2023 Supreme Court ruling in Groff v. DeJoy, which established they must show accommodating an employee\u2019s religious observances would impose substantial costs to their business rather than minor inconvenience.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cMy exemption doesn\u2019t apply to other employees, and I\u2019m not trying to affect other people\u2019s work,\u201d Durman said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Durman\u2019s exemption comes as employers push workers to embrace AI despite growing anxiety about the technology. Shopify CEO Tobi L\u00fctke has called AI use a baseline expectation, while Amazon urged software engineers to adopt it when useful. More workers are using it, but also fear falling behind if they don\u2019t. A Gallup poll found 52% of U.S. employees used AI at work at least a few times a year as of May 2026, up from 21% in 2023. At the same time, an American Psychological Association survey this year found 37% of workers worried about falling behind colleagues if they didn\u2019t use AI, while 48% feared it could make some or all of their job duties obsolete.<\/p>\n

Durman also isn\u2019t alone in raising moral objections to AI use. Pope Leo XIV notably warned in his May encyclical that relying on AI could erode human creativity and judgment and called for more oversight, referring to AI as \u201ca valuable tool that requires vigilance.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Durman said he was aware of the Pope\u2019s encyclical and even read parts of it, but wasn\u2019t necessarily influenced by it in his accommodation request. He was more inspired by Erin Maus, a software engineer and practicing Unitarian Universalist who got a religious exemption from using AI at her tech company in May.<\/p>\n

But Durman\u2019s exemption doesn\u2019t mean any employee opposed to AI can refuse to use it. For Title VII\u2019s hardship standard, the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Office distinguishes sincerely held religious beliefs from personal preferences and political or economic views. Huiskens said Durman\u2019s decades of Humanist adherence and his efforts to avoid AI in his personal life helped establish his case. Whether another employee could pull off the same request would depend on their beliefs and the impact on their employer.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s kind of up to these larger corporations and or universities to comment on and make a determination on,\u201d she said. \u201cRight now, we are just reacting to what we are seeing and making sure that our members and Humanists generally are protected.\u201d<\/p>\n

#bosses #push #workers #Kentucky #man #opt<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As a teenager, David Durman would read works by Enlightenment philosopher David Hume and the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[245],"tags":[3245,637,4914,4661,16189,4991,317,624],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19376"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19376"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19376\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}