In the United States, the first confirmed case has been recorded of a worker being formally exempted from using artificial intelligence tools at work on the basis of non-religious ethical beliefs. David Durman, a research programs administrator at the University of Kentucky who identifies as a secular humanist, secured the decision from university management, the website infohub.kz reports.
The employer acknowledged that the employee's refusal to interact with neural networks in his personal work tasks does not create undue hardship for the workflow, and granted his request under religious-belief protections. TechCrunch reports this.
In a statement from the American Humanist Association, Durman stressed that the mandatory adoption of neural networks violates his deep moral values and that he cannot contribute to the spread of this technology.
The exemption is individual in nature: the specialist is relieved of the need to write text prompts for personal tasks, but is obliged to take part in general meetings and to contact colleagues who use the algorithms.
The US Civil Rights Act protects sincere non-theistic ethical systems if they are of fundamental importance to an employee's worldview.