Humanism isnt really a religion. Its a non theistic philosophy.
The article points that out:
While humanism is often a non-religious philosophy or a worldview, federal courts have ruled that it qualifies as a religion.
I don’t think religion itself has to be theistic.
It doesn’t. Buddhism, for example does not require a belief in gods.
Oh FUUUUCK YES!
While I think most religious exemptions are stupidly and bullshit (looking at you, vaccine dodgers), this one can be considered to have actual theological merit. No graven images or creations. Also the fact the there are already cults of the AI. It’s still fighting bullshit with bullshit, but sometimes that’s all you have.
Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind.
Big no-no for the followers of the God Emperor of Dune or 40k.
So uh how do I make kids
Oh man you’re gonna like this part
Don’t make kids that are machines
While humanism is often a non-religious philosophy or a worldview, federal courts have ruled that it qualifies as a religion.
Best part of the story
There’s no greater validation for an ideology than the state endorsing it as a religion. smh…
First of its kind
Pretty sure it isn’t.
She won a religious exemption from using AI at work. The Pope’s remarks could fuel similar appeals.
Yeah. Why isn’t this higher. Or is it somehow different?
If Scientology can get a tax exception as a religious institution, then this guy can get title 9 coverage to not use AI at work as far as I am concerned.
If it was anywhere but a university I would have also expected him to be on the short list for layoffs next round for such a choice as well.
Religion is a federally protected class. Are we not even pretending our laws work anymore?
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“Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind.”
One religious exemption, please!
Yep, a society based on privileging religion will support almost any wacky ideology that doesn’t oppose the state.
This is a large part of how we got here.
No man is already granted that
hold up. keep your torches lit.
It should be noted that while anyone can request a Title VII exemption, it will only be granted if the applicant has a deep moral conviction that could count as an article of faith. Aside from that, the law also states that the request should not place an “undue hardship on the employer’s business.” So, even though Durman is no longer personally required to use AI tools for his tasks, he is still expected to attend meetings and cooperate with colleagues who use AI or to submit materials to AI tools, as needed.
TLDR; this guy won, but you probably won’t.
So they want me to use an AI to do my job. But at the same time they haven’t fired me so presumably they understand that the AI can’t be used exclusively to do the job. So doesn’t that mean that they accept that I have better judgment than an AI and therefore my decision not to use said AI shouldn’t be a problem for them.
I would love to see them actually try articulate exactly why the above is not true in an employment tribunal.
Employment tribunal?
You must not be American.
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Not everyone is
For sure, it’s just nice seeing non USian perspectives in comments. There’s dozens of us.
How dare you use logic! Go, be ashamed of yourself!
So you can’t oppose outsourcing your brain power to a megacorp that will take zero responsibility for any consequence of its spicy autocorrect…
but you can oppose outsourcing your brain power to “the machine” because it’s against your beliefs.
I mean, if it works, yeah sure, call it a religion.
Humanism is a religion.
I mean it’s literally not, it’s a philosophy, even the American Humanist Society states so
Yeah but they’re all dorks so whatever.
True and real
There’s no objective difference between religion and philosophy.
There’s a “rule of thumb” lose categorisation though, but fuzzy on the edges
There is.
Philosophy is structured and rational thought.
Religion is the opposite. Easy.
It is impossible to construct ethics from first principles. A study of philosophy would tell you that. Logic can take you from one step to another, but at the end of your chain of reason will always lie some pure belief, an act of faith.
For example, many ethical systems can be traced to a few basic axioms, like “human suffering is bad.” Or “humans deserve to live.” Or “all lives have value.” But these are statements that cannot be produced through mathematics. There’s no equation that can tell you it’s a good thing for a child not to die of hunger. At some point, every moral system traces back to certain basic axioms that are pure beliefs, not rationally derived from any logic or mathematical equation.
It is impossible to construct ethics from first principles.
You’ve never read Groundwork for a Metaphysics of Morals? That’s pretty basic stuff, like Ethics 101 basic.
And I’m not even a huge Kant fan let alone a deontologist, in fact I’m more of a situationist, but you should at least be familiar with the Categorical Imperative before you make a nebulous claim like “A study of philosophy would tell you that.”
Sometimes abstraction is good and necessary, but a statement like “There’s no equation that can tell you it’s a good thing for a child not to die of hunger” is an over-abstraction. There’s no need to abstract it further, because the situation is already concrete. Anyone who has experienced grief can tell you that, and an ivory tower that’s too sterile to taste grief has nothing to offer the world in the way of ethics.
Only a sociopath would have to wrestle with the question of whether there’s anything objectively bad about children dying. Do you expect anyone to try to prove it mathematically? Because that would be entirely the wrong approach.
If you can’t state “living is a good thing, and therefore premature loss of an innocent life is a bad thing” as a first principle, then there could be no point in debating ethics with you because you’re already amoral.
I’m not accusing you of thinking that way, I understand you’re presenting a line of reasoning in the abstract as a thought experiment. I’m simply telling you what my response would be to someone who tried actually arguing along that line.
One is a way of thinking, the other is an interpretation of reality.
The other one is bullshit *
And philosophy isn’t bullshit for sure.
I dunno, some philosophy is bullshit
Yeah, but just because all then all philosophy is bullshit. Some movies are bullshit but not for that the cinema and all the movies are bullshit too.
Anyways, every statement, even stating that philosophy is bullshit or isn’t knowledge, is a philosophic statement to some degree or another.
Tenets and beliefs
Gotta be a religion to get privileged in USA. Reason and rationality get thrown out the window.
Or at the very least an “article of faith” protected by the US Government. Idk about humanism tax status.
I mean, prompt writing is like wishes with Djinns.
I don’t know, Jewish tradition has golems. They’re basically human-shaped machines that are powered by the words written by their creators.
Though golems are supposed to be mute, and LLM are anything but. Maybe that’s why AI is bad.
I’m sure we can find something written millennia ago that describes precisely why we shouldn’t use gen AI now, we just have to look for it.
Evil genies
I used that bullshit to get out of beard length requirements at a job once. They dont like to question it to much, and if they do, you just have to get offended lol.
Imaginary religion gets exemption from imaginary technology within a society of religious privilege detached from reality.
Honestly I don’t necessarily mind giving religious exceptions since it’s part of culture which is the lifeblood of mankind, with the obvious asterisk that you shouldn’t initiate harm on your fellow man. My problem is that secular elements of culture are oft ignored for some fucken reason. In this essay I will explain why I a bloodthirsty redneck should be allowed to scalp Elon Musk for entirely acceptable cultural reasons.
I suddenly just became religious.
Praise be to whatever gets me exemption!
You’re gonna love this article
I praise the Flying Spaggheti Monster, it’ll count?
You should have seen me getting out of jury duty. Legendary sermon. They dismissed our whole group.
I would have preferred to talk about rational reasons to oppose the torture/gulag system, but unfortunately this enslaver state only privileges religious ideology.
