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
“Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind.”
One religious exemption, please!
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.
How dare you use logic! Go, be ashamed of yourself!
Though it’s kinda funny that Humanism was the one to do it, it’s literally atheism with extra steps
Religious exemption should apply to common sense. That’s just common sense.
Common Sense is just code for “cultural zeitgeist”, there’s no such thing as common sense
Freedom from religion is more important than freedom of religion.
Time to apply this to financial economics.
I suddenly just became religious.
Praise be to whatever gets me exemption!
Praise Jesus! (I guess I’m only half joking)
I was actually thinking about this wrt healthcare access earlier. I have a genuinely religious conviction against the intimate, personal details of my condition being processed by a machine and made available online. That is the business of myself and a professional caregiver, not a tech company and whatever “partners” they feel like sharing it with. You’re supposed to be able to opt out, but practically that’s almost never possible
Anyways I know it’s in an entirely different field, but this felt like a hopeful precedent. Thanks for sharing :)
Alchemy goes against my beliefs, I refuse to use the philosopher’s stone.
I would simply flat out refuse that shit. If that wouldn’t fly, I would quit.
Cool. So the first defense we have against AI is coming from the “shit we made up long ago” corner
I’d argue that humanism is a bit different from, say, Christianity. It has ancient philisophilcal roots, but it’s not like humanists are following texts from some crazy asshole tripping balls in a desert 2000 years ago.
Basically the opposite. The guy is a Humanist. Humanism is basically the opposite of established religion like you’re thinking. They focus on the belief that humans are ultimately responsible for their own autonomy and progress and that our morals and ethics can be defined from the fact we are social beings who ultimately must rely on each other. Humanism tends to emphasize science and human agency.
This reminds me of a quote from Star Trek First Contact- “We Believe that when you build a machine to do the work of a man, you take something away from the man.”
When I first saw the film, I rejected that. Seemed like backwards thinking, ignorant Luddite ideology ignoring the reality that when the machine does the man’s work, you free up the man to do other things. When a man doesn’t have to plow the field, he can focus on art and science and philosophy and music and poetry and otherwise taking his mind to the next level. At least that sounded good in my head.
Then I look at what we have now. We have built machines to create art and science and music and poetry, so the man is left to keep taking out the garbage. This is not an improvement. The Baku may not have been totally wrong.
I like Cory Doctorow’s take on it differentiating the two different classes of machine:
In automation theory, a “centaur” is a person who is assisted by a machine. You’re a human head being carried around on a tireless robot body. Driving a car makes you a centaur, and so does using autocomplete.
And obviously, a reverse centaur is a machine head on a human body, a person who is serving as a squishy meat appendage for an uncaring machine.
Obviously, it’s nice to be a centaur, and it’s horrible to be a reverse centaur.
The AI trend has been pushing all of us to be reverse centaurs which is the problem with machines you’re talking about.
The problem is that you start thinking the robot tentacles are a neat tool and that you’re a centaur.
But before long the tentacles take over and you haven’t even realized you’ve become a reverse centaur.
Source : the ancient wisdom of Spider-Man 2 (2004).
I think the distinction is what we consider “the work of a man”. I don’t consider man’s work to be just physical labor. A lot of things can do that. I think the true work of humanity is to use our ingenuity and critical thinking to do more. I’m not saying physical labor is not important, but there are several jobs that require physical labor and take thought and troubleshooting. I don’t need a human being to screw in the same screw on an assembly line a hundred times a day, but a human being may be needed to determine why that screw ends up being a failure point in the final product.
There is of course lots to be said about the value of a hard days work and the toil and effort of physical labor, but I think we are all capable of so much more. It need not just be that.
Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow?
I get the reference, but that’s not really related to what I said. I don’t want to just ignore your comment if it’s a serious point, but at no point did I suggest otherwise.
I was being a little tongue-in-cheek.
I just don’t super agree with your premise that the “real” work of man is to do more, is all. I like to think it’s more to accomplish something with intention, craft, and rigor. We’ve disconnected ourselves from our “real” work.
I don’t consider man’s work to be just physical labor.
The key here is that the English language currently does a piss-poor job of creating a destinction between meaningfull, avocational, enriching “work”, and meaningless, necessity-driven “labour.” Anthropologists have found pre-agrarian cultures tended to do far less labour, but had plenty of activity. I blame pretestant “work ethic” for equating taking out the trash and all that with meaningful work that makes a person.
The thing is that not everyone wants to do art, science or philosophy. Some people want to plow their field, they’re happy with that. Who are we to take that away from them?
Reasonable compromises must be made. I won’t lie to you, being someone that spent the better part of their career performing manual labor I would find it hard to believe you have spent any extended amount of time working a farm.
The share of people that want to perform, very specifically, back breaking labor is small compared to the number of people that would prefer to do literally anything else. We can make accommodations for that small number bit automating plowing but not science is a reasonable compromise.
I think the older I get and the more I see all of us being alienated from the fruits of our labors, the more I realize that there is/was value in the reproductive labor of food production, clothing production, etc. I don’t mean that we should all go back to being serfs (though, there are studies that show they worked less than we do), but I think that there’s something lost when most people don’t have anything of value they can point to and say “I made that” or “I had a hand in that.” Most people have bullshit jobs that have very little to do with human thriving/surviving and at the same time, don’t see more people doing science or art or poetry. IDK what the solution is, but it sure feels like we’ve been collectively sold a bill of goods in a lot of ways.
Those “they worked less” articles often twist and lose the truth. They worked less on the specific work for their masters maybe, but they had to because they had to work at home; everything and I mean everything took longer back then. They needed more time to prepare food and darn their socks and split firewood for the winter and whatnot. They couldn’t just run to the nearest store if they needed a loaf of bread. They had to actually make it. So yes, they “worked less” but they also worked a lot more doing their house chores just to survive.
You’ll note that I actively disclaimed a desire to go back to serfdom. My broader point is about the alienation of labor and the sole focus on product rather than process.
laundry was a total bitch too
Also if we’re talking serfs specifically they actually had to work the lands of their lord and didn’t get anything in return, all of it went to the lord. Then also they had to work to sustain themselves and their family. It’s like if they made you today to work 3 weeks for your boss, without pay, then you can work one week for pay to earn your living.
That’s Insurrection, not First Contact.
Nice catch. Fixed
I don’t want to be a statue!
THAT is First Contact.
Also, 😭…
Someone should forward this to Proton employees.
Are you trying to get religious exemptions taken away?
Being exempted for belonging to a special club is ass.
Being exempted because personal moral conviction despite not belonging to a special club: cool.
I prefer vague made up religious exemptions over a reasonable moral conviction /s
Honestly, that’d be great. Let’s not give people stupid exemptions for delusional beliefs.
Rights that can’t be used for fear of having them stripped are not rights.
That seems correct.
I would personally have to see the holy book that talks about how AI is wrong before I could buy into this supposed right.
The guys a humanist.
I can hear your trilby hat flapping in the wind from all the way over here.
Humanism is not a religion. Talk about stretching a law to its breaking point.
I can see your gears not quite meshing from way over here.
Yes it is.
Also, even if it wasn’t it wouldn’t matter, legally speaking. The EEOC guarantees protections whether or not an organization has tax exempt status.
I don’t agree with this Federal court decision and nor does many other humanists like me.
HAHAHAHAHAHA
Alright, so I can wrap my head around this. Your response to being told that no one is “stretching the law” because the law specifically protects this kind of speech is to say “nu uh?”
You’re claiming a religious exemption from the law that enables you to claim a religious exemption?
