A reader writes:
I work in a consulting field and have some large tech companies as clients. My work can be done in a timely and effective manner without using any AI tools (and indeed, attempts to introduce AI tools to our workflow in the past have been ineffective at best). Nonetheless, our senior leadership, including our CEO, are extremely excited to jump aboard the AI bandwagon and already have a habit of kicking problems down the road to be solved by a theoretical AI tool that we do not even have yet.
I am also a practicing Maronite Catholic, which does not come up at work because I keep my professional and private lives strictly separate and my employer has never asked me to violate my ethical framework. However, Pope Leo recently published a significant Encyclical that, in my personal reading, seems to establish the current model of for-profit, labor-replacing generative AI as counter to Catholic social doctrine.
Would I be within my rights to claim a religious exemption if asked to use AI tools at work? If so, how would I best go about doing so? I already had serious ethical concerns about AI as a plagiarism engine, source of environmental destruction, and eroder of the dignity of human labor, but now it seems that there is a clear doctrinal precedent to cite within my religious denomination.
In theory, you could at least try. In fact, one software engineer has already done it successfully — not using the Pope’s letter, but using her own Unitarian Universalist beliefs.
Employers in the U.S. are legally required to provide reasonable accommodations for employees’ sincerely-held religious beliefs, unless doing so creates an “undue hardship” for the business. So to counter your request, your employer would need to argue that using AI tools are an essential requirement for your job and that you not using them would cause them undue hardship. Undue hardship can’t just be “we don’t like that she’s not using it” or “everyone else on the team uses it” — it would need to be something that genuinely interfered with the running of their business or significantly disrupted your efficiency. If the fundamentals of your job haven’t changed significantly since AI came on the scene, in many cases they’d have a hard time arguing that.
Keep in mind, though, that while it could help for you to cite Pope Leo’s letter, you’d also need to articulate how you’ve incorporated that into your beliefs and practices and that you’re purposely abstaining from using AI in your daily life. If, for example, you’re using ChatGPT to edit your emails or reading Google AI search summaries, you might struggle to prove the belief is consistent and sincere (and sincerity is a key requirement in the law).
That’s the legal side of it. There’s also the squishier “what does this mean for your standing in your office” side of it. In some offices, it wouldn’t affect that at all; you just wouldn’t use AI and no one would care, figuring it’s just a tool they’re offering and if you can get your job done without it, that’s fine. In other offices, you’d be seen as a pain in the ass and not aligned with how they do things, and you’d have trouble getting promotions or desirable projects or have little capital left for other things, or could even be more likely to end up on a layoff list if they ever needed to cut jobs. And in other offices, it wouldn’t be that pronounced but would be somewhere in between those two.
If you want to try it and don’t think it will be an easy sell at your particular office, talk to a lawyer first. They’ll be better able to advise you based on the particular circumstances at your job.