A software engineer in North Carolina received a protection just last month, Business Insider reports.
Unitarian Universalist Erin Maus first sought accommodations in April at the big tech-entertainment company where she works, which she described as progressive. He argued that the use of AI is not consistent with his religious beliefs due to environmental and ethical concerns.
Maus was granted immunity in May, before the Pope’s AI comments.
“I’m writing my code and reviewing my code by hand, which sounds crazy to say,” Maus told Business Insider. “Just two years ago, how else would you have done it?”
It’s unlikely that Mauz will be the only person seeking similar accommodations as companies are increasingly investing in AI and forcing employees to use the technology, sometimes even mandating it. In the US, the share of employees who say they use AI at least a few times a year at work is set to nearly double from 21% to 40% in 2025, according to Gallup.
Now, the Pope’s comments and official religious documents may provide a strong argument to some activists.
“In the age of artificial intelligence, when new forms of dehumanization threaten human dignity, we have a duty to remain deeply human,” the pope wrote in his 43,000-word encyclical Magnifica Humanitas, published last month.
He wrote that AI was dehumanizing society by “reducing the mystery of the individual to data and display” and called on the tech industry to avoid “the idolatry of profit that sacrifices the weak”.
The Pope further stated that “the slow pace of adoption of AI does not mean opposition to progress; instead, it is an exercise of responsible care for the human family.”
Calls for slower adoption of AI may be enough for some workers to argue that they should not be required to use it at work.
“When he’s speaking, he’s speaking as a pontiff — as a religious figure — so he’s raising these human dignity issues as religious issues, theological issues,” employment lawyer and Duane Morris partner Jonathan Segal told HR Brew this month. “I think it’s inevitable that some employees will rely on this to say…I can’t use AI because it conflicts with my religious belief.”
Under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, employers are required to provide reasonable accommodations to workers whose sincerely held religious beliefs conflict with a work requirement, unless the accommodation creates an undue hardship for the employer.
And it’s not a stretch to think that some of these requests might at least be seriously considered. Just a few months ago, Rex Healthcare agreed to pay $150,000 to settle a lawsuit by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that accused the company of unlawfully denying a remote employee’s request for an exemption from its mandatory COVID-19 vaccine policy based on his religious beliefs.
“I think it opens a door for employees to raise concerns — or it’s a little part of a road map,” Segal told HR Brew. “What the courts have said – what the EEOC has certainly said – is that, as a general proposition, we should not question the validity [of] Have sincere religious beliefs.”
<a href