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A North Carolina employer recently granted an employee’s request for a religious exemption from artificial intelligence (AI) — some experts suggest that workplace requests for AI exemptions may help draw more attention to religious exemptions for vaccination.
In April, Erin Maus, a software engineer and practicing Unitarian Universalist, asked her employer for a religious exemption from using AI.
According to Inc. Magazine, Maus cited ethical questions and environmental concerns linked to the operation of AI data centers in her objection. Maus consulted with an employment lawyer and a minister at her local chapter to support her request.
Business Insider reported that last month, her employer, a “large tech-entertainment company” that Maus described as “progressive,” granted the exemption.
“I’m writing my code and reviewing my code by hand, which seems crazy to say,” Maus told Business Insider. “Just two years ago, how else would you do it?”
Shortly after Maus’ employer granted her exemption, Pope Leo XIV published a 42,000-word encyclical letter in which he raised questions about how AI can undermine human dignity and negatively affect workers, and called for AI to be “disarmed.”
According to Business Insider, the pope’s letter could fuel more AI exemption requests, as the document “carries real legal weight, given that federal law requires employers to consider faith-based requests.”
Michael Kane, director of advocacy for Children’s Health Defense, said some religious exemption requests for AI may relate to fears that the technology represents the “mark of the beast” — and that it “will be required to engage in all transactions.”
“If people have strongly held, sincere beliefs against AI, then I support their right to seek religious exemption from using it,” Kane said.
Religious exemption requests on the rise
The issue of religious exemptions to avoid using AI comes at a time when the debate over religious exemptions for vaccination is intensifying — and when clinical trials for the first vaccine developed with the use of AI are underway.
Earlier this month, the University of Cambridge and its Bill Gates-linked biotech spinoff DIOSynVax published the results of Phase I clinical trials of the first-ever vaccine designed by AI, a universal coronavirus vaccine. The vaccine is being promoted as a solution to future pandemics.
Currently, four U.S. states — California, Connecticut, Maine and New York — do not recognize religious exemptions for vaccination. In West Virginia, the issue is the subject of ongoing litigation and political debate.
Other states, including Massachusetts, are considering legislation to end religious exemptions for vaccination. Last year, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the largest pediatric trade group in the U.S., called for an end to religious exemptions.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported a record number of religious exemptions from school vaccination requirements in recent years. And according to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, 3,710 workers filed religion-based discrimination claims in 2025 — up from 2,111 in 2021.
Business Insider reported that 2021 was “the last full fiscal year before vaccine-mandate disputes drove a sharp increase in filings.”
‘Doubtful’ there will be many ‘public health’ arguments for requiring employees to use AI
Rev. Wendy Silvers, founder of the Million Mamas Movement, told The Defender that “growth in successful AI religious exemptions can expand the possibility for religious exemptions for vaccinations,” including for future AI-powered vaccines.
Kane said a potential growth in religious exemption requests for AI use may “draw attention to the issue of religious exemption to vaccination,” particularly if AI-driven vaccines become available.
“One would have two avenues for religious objection to this technology — one being to vaccination itself and the other being to AI,” he said.
More broadly, Kane said “the fundamental arguments are likely to be much different” among employees seeking religious exemptions to AI use versus those seeking such exemptions from vaccination requirements.
“I am doubtful there will be many ‘public health’ arguments to force the use of AI on employees, except for hospital and healthcare settings,” Kane said.
Silvers said many employers may be less willing to grant religious exemptions for vaccination as opposed to other requests, including AI.
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“There still seems to be an existing blind spot and parsing out of what areas a person’s sincerely held religious belief may be applied to when it comes to vaccines, as opposed to other issues,” Silvers said. “This would present human resources departments with the weight of accepting religious exemptions without question.”
Kane said states that currently prohibit religious exemptions to vaccination are likely to remain resistant to this right, even if religious exemption requests for other reasons, such as AI, become more prominent.
“Many states use these idiosyncratic differences against the individual seeking exemption. Instead of honoring that we are all unique individuals with various faiths, states often use these small differences to create arguments negating our beliefs to force medical interventions upon us. States like New York and California,” Kane said.
Silvers said that whether employees seek religious exemptions to vaccination or for other reasons, the underlying reason for such requests remains the same.
“One of the greatest gifts of being human is that of having choice. It is our God-given right to determine what happens to our bodies and minds,” she said.
“As humans, we get to acknowledge our God-given rights to keep our bodies pure from forced medical protocols and procedures,” Silvers added. “If HR is tasked with granting religious exemptions with regard to AI, then we must also do this with medical protocols that affect our brains, immune systems and bodies.”
Related articles in The Defender
- AI-Designed Universal Coronavirus Vaccine Raises DNA Contamination Fears
- Breaking: Congress Members Urge DOJ to Investigate 4 States That Prohibit Religious Exemptions
- Vaccination Rates Hit Record-Breaking Low for Third Year in a Row as Religious Exemptions Reach Record High
- American Academy of Pediatrics Wants to Shut Down Religious Vaccine Exemptions
- Watch: AI Data Centers ‘Spreading Like an Aggressive Cancer’
- Will Maine Become First State to Block Data Centers?
