Montana becomes first state to enshrine 'right to compute' into law

https://montananewsroom.com/montana-becomes-first-state-to-enshrine-right-to-compute-into-law/

by bilsbie • 9 months ago

541 330 9 months ago

montroser3• 9 months ago

I guess this is like the second amendment, except for computers and GPUs? I'm with it -- but is this actually addressing a real threat?

Maybe I'm naive, and I am definitely uncertain about how all this AI craziness is going to break -- whether empowering everyone or advancing ultra corporate dystopia. But do we think our government is gearing up to take our laptops away?

lmeyerov• 9 months ago

There is a big push to limit what kind of models can be OSS'd, which in turn means yes, a limit to what AI you are allowed to run.

The California laws the article references make OSS AI model makers liable for whatever developers & users do. That chills the enthusiasm for someone like Facebook or a university to release a better llama. So I'm curious if this law removes that liability..

ranger_danger• 9 months ago

Maybe they are trying to lure in more money.

theoldgreybeard• 9 months ago

The federalist wing of the drafters of the US Constitution didn't think a Bill of Rights was necessary because they believed that a government of only enumerated powers was enough.

So they didn't even think things like the First and Second Amendment were even necessary.

Fastfoward 250 years and now maybe the idea of a "right of the people to own and self host their own software, shall not be infringed" doesn't sound like such a bad idea.

montroser3• 9 months ago

True -- I like this take on it. I wonder where we will be 250 years from now.

salawat• 9 months ago

Ha. You reach for the 2nd but fail to realize that of all the Amendments, there is more legal precedent torture to sidestep that prohibition than any other amendment save maybe the 4th, 5th, and 10th.

FpUser4• 9 months ago

"right of the people to own and self host their own software, shall not be infringed"

Count me in.

pessimizer• 9 months ago

they believed that a government of only enumerated powers was enough.

That's a perspective, but it seems to me that the Federalists didn't believe that government should be limited at all. The Constitution is a genie granting three wishes, and explaining beforehand that one of your wishes can be to wish for three more wishes.

Personally, it's always seemed obvious that the Federalists and their children have been the worst intellectual current in US government. They never had popular support at any time, and relied on the manipulation of power and position to accomplish personal goals (which is really their only ideology.) It began with a betrayal of the French Revolution, setting the US on a dirty path (and leaving the Revolution to be taken over by the insane.) The Bill of Rights is the only worthwhile part of the US Constitution; the rest of it is a bunch of slop meant to placate and protect local warlords and slaveholders. The Bill of Rights is the only part that acknowledges that individual people exist other than the preamble.

The Anti-Federalists were always right.

I agree with you that what we should be working on is specifying, codifying and expanding the Bill of Rights, rather than the courts continually trying to come up with new ways to subvert it. New ways that are never codified firmly, that always exist as vibes and penumbras. Rights shouldn't have anything to do with what a judge knows when he sees. If we want to abridge or expand the Bill of Rights, a new amendment should be written and passed; the Supreme Court is overloaded because 1) Congress has ceased to function and 2) the Senate is still an assembly of local warlords.

giantg2• 9 months ago

"Fastfoward 250 years and ..."

... the 10th amendment is largely ignored.

lostmsu• 9 months ago

It's not like second amendment due to "limited to those demonstrably necessary"

bongodongobob• 9 months ago

Maybe you've forgotten that the US at one time tried to ban encryption. They will try again too, I'm sure.

bhauer• 9 months ago

but is this actually addressing a real threat?

US Executive Orders 14110 and 14141 did create fairly onerous regulatory regimes that could have constrained the dynamism of the marketplace. However, my understanding is that both have been rescinded, so they do not currently post a real threat.

amanaplanacanal3• 9 months ago

A state law wouldn't have any effect on those anyway.

TheRealPomax• 9 months ago

You're thinking about your own situation - that's normal, but not enough: there are still loads of folks who don't have a computer but are expected to interface with their governments (municipal, county, state) using a computer, and have had to pay disproportionately more being in the least affluent and/or most vulnerable demographic.

It's not about losing access to laptops, it's about guaranteeing the right to even have access to the same tools that folks like us think everyone already has access to.

montroser3• 9 months ago

That seems like something different though. My understanding is that this is not about the government handing out free laptops, the same way the second amendment is not about the government handing out free guns. Rather, this is saying people have the right to own general purpose computers.

As far as government expecting you to interface with them using a computer, I loathe this trend. And of course it's infinitely worse if they require a specific proprietary platform like iOS or Android. But I don't think this is about that.

gspr• 9 months ago

I'm with it -- but is this actually addressing a real threat?

Yes, the threat of mandated computational devices performing mandated computations to do things in regular life. Currently, these come almost exclusively from private companies (at least in the free world), but I think it's a good precedent for a government to recognize the dangers here. To be really helpful, it needs to ban those private companies from doing what they're doing. But this is a good start.

wyager• 9 months ago

The EU and UK keep trying to undermine encryption, so I'd say there's a pretty clear risk to the freedom of general purpose computation.

cestith3• 9 months ago

The US has tried more than once.

nrhrjrjrjtntbt• 9 months ago

No one made the joke yet?

Right to bear ARMs.

cwillu• 9 months ago

It's not about private citizens, for all they go on about “protecting rights”; this is transparently about preventing corporations from having their datacenters regulated.

anigbrowl• 9 months ago

This is just going to be used to shut down environmental objections to data centers. It will have absolutely no impact for individuals, imho.

throwaway2905• 9 months ago

But do we think our government is gearing up to take our laptops away?

This law is not about them coming for your laptop. It's about some massive corporation is not allowed to cover all the land in data centers. Which one of you has more legal lobby power?

The gov doesn't need to come for your laptop if you are out of the job and can't even afford that laptop because everybody pays an LLM company instead

Think about this like you're openai not an average Joe:

Government actions that restrict the ability to privately own or make use of computational resources for lawful purposes

rkagerer• 9 months ago

You're not alone wondering about that. I would much rather have seen something along the lines of:

- right to internet connectivity (along with restrictions against some particularly offensive practices impinging access, including ads and popups when they are intrusive enough to substantially interfere*)

- right to utilize methods that protect personal privacy, like off-cloud computing (which I guess is partly covered here) and encrypted communications

- limit the extent to which online Terms of Service can bind you (i.e. deem unenforceable some of the worst clauses making their way around Silicon Valley, e.g. vague catchall indemnities that don't arise directly out of a user's breach of contract or illegal activity, incorporating third party terms of service by reference without explicitly stating what those terms are)

- identify activities that must be explicitly opt-in instead of opt-out (e.g. newly-introduced settings or features when they reduce a user's privacy, consents to sell user information / behavioral advertising / advertising remarketing / etc.)

---

* Think about it like driving down a road. Imagine if you couldn't even get get down the street or across an intersection without bumper-car-ing into some giant "acknowledge", "agree", "go away" buttons, and having to swerve around billboards that randomly jump into your lane.

NoGravitas2• 9 months ago

The name and rhetoric of the bill sound great, but the actual point of the bill is to make it impossible to stop AI companies and cryptominers from building data centers in your residential neighborhood.

seneca• 9 months ago

Here's the actual text of the law: https://legiscan.com/MT/text/SB212/id/3078731

superkuh2• 9 months ago

It's hilarious that the text of this law is blocked behind an impassible cloudflare computational paywall.

terminalshort6• 9 months ago

So impassible that I didn't even see it

fHr• 9 months ago

I don't get it, accessing this from EU no issue

dynm• 9 months ago

I think this is the main content of the law. (Everything below is quoted.)

---

Section 3. Right to compute

Government actions that restrict the ability to privately own or make use of computational resources for lawful purposes, which infringes on citizens' fundamental rights to property and free expression, must be limited to those demonstrably necessary and narrowly tailored to fulfill a compelling government interest in public health or safety.

---

Section 4. Infrastructure controlled by artificial intelligence system -- shutdown.

(1) When critical infrastructure facilities are controlled in whole or in part by an artificial intelligence system, the deployer shall ensure the capability to disable the artificial intelligence system's control over the infrastructure and revert to human control within a reasonable amount of time.

(2) When enacting a full shutdown, the deployer shall consider, as appropriate, disruptions to critical infrastructure that may result from a shutdown.

(3) Deployers shall implement, annually review, and test a risk management policy that includes a fallback mechanism and a redundancy and mitigation plan to ensure the deployer can continue operations and maintain control of the critical infrastructure facility without the use of the artificial intelligence system.

BirAdam2• 9 months ago

I feel like this was a mistake: “must be limited to those demonstrably necessary and narrowly tailored to fulfill a compelling government interest in public health or safety”

So, public health or safety, in the hands of a tyrant how broad can that get? I imagine that by enshrining this in law, Montana has accidentally given a future leader the ability to confiscate all computing technology.

ralusek• 9 months ago

It appears to be a law that is simply adding restrictions to what the state can do (like the first amendment, the best sorts of laws IMO). It’s not granting people limited rights. Any existing rights people had under the fourth or first example, for example, are still in place, this just sounds like further restrictions on the state.

mpalmer3• 9 months ago

This is how laws are written. A court would determine whether the state is abusing or violating this public safety carve-out.

noir_lord2• 9 months ago

In the hands of a tyrant all laws can be arbitrary/ignored because that is a key part of what makes them a tyrant.

Almost every part of government is in isolation a single point of failure to someone with a tyrannical streak, it's why most democracies end up with multiple houses/bodies and courts - supposed to act as checks and balances.

So this law wouldn't alter the outcome in the slightest.

SilverElfin• 9 months ago

Agree - it feels a lot like emergency measures, which are broadly abused at every level of the government and by both major parties.

captainkrtek• 9 months ago

Do tyrants care about law? They find ways to work around law, write new law, and rule by decree.

Democracy is largely following norms and tradition of respecting the people and laws, but it can also be ignored when those in power shift.

dvntsemicolon• 9 months ago

I see your point, but a tyrant doesn't need to follow laws in order to do tyranical things

ethin• 9 months ago

This phrasing is not by itself unusual; this almost mirrors the requirements for strict scrutiny.

singron2• 9 months ago

This is essentially the "strict scrutiny" standard, which governments have to achieve in order to violate your strongest constitutional rights (e.g. 1A). If you don't spell it out, then it might be delegated to a lower standard like "rational basis".

simplulo2• 9 months ago

I know what you mean, but this is actually as strong as a protection in Montana (and probably elsewhere) gets. The burden is high. Montana's RTC bill had strong and competent libertarian input.

BriggyDwiggs42• 9 months ago

So this is probably just to attract datacenters with the promise there will be no recourse for the local environmental consequences and the horrible noise for neighbors.

andai• 9 months ago

Does The Hum fall under the 1st Amendment? ;)

dweinus• 9 months ago

Exactly. All of the people in comments here thinking this has any impact on right to repair or open source are thoroughly kidding themselves. Lawmakers don't get out of bed in the morning to fight for nerds or the working class.

soupy-soup• 8 months ago

This is exactly what's happening. There are some huge data center projects in progress in Montana.

xorcist2• 9 months ago

That's .. unexpectedly broad? A strict interpretation of that would mean no gaming consoles and certainly no iPhones.

Their fundamental promise is a gatekeeper that restricts a lot of things that are not only legal but many customers want to do, including trivial things like writing their own software.

qnleigh• 9 months ago

Government actions that restrict the ability to privately own or make use of computational resources

If the government tried to block you from installing certain apps on your phone, that would fall under this law. Apple as a private company can still block whatever they want.

yason• 9 months ago

If that's the gist of it, then:

Government actions that restrict the ability to privately...

This seems weirdly backwards. The main problem is not generally what government can and wishes to restrict, it's all the proprietary/private restrictions such as not being able to run whatever code you want on hardware you own. The bill does nothing to address the actual rights of citizens, it just limits some ways government can't further restrict the citizens' right. The government should be protecting the citizens' digital rights from anyone trying to clamp them down.

BrenBarn2• 9 months ago

That's the notion of "rights" we have in the US though. It's the same with the Bill of Rights. It's true some states do go further and bestow more affirmative rights. But it's deeply ingrained in US political thought that "right to do X" means "government won't stop you from doing X", not "government will stop anyone who tries to stop you from doing X".

gameman144• 9 months ago

This seems to have the positive effect that patching applications on your own device (a la Revanced patching Spotify) appears blessed, since government prosecution would need to demonstrate a public interest case, if I'm reading this correctly.

samdoesnothing6• 9 months ago

No, the problem is the extent to which private parties can use the power of law to legally restrict your usage of property you own. And that's the reason it's a right.

If you don't like the restrictions a product has you can simply not purchase the product, no "right" has been infringed.

a_humean• 9 months ago

Yeah, the whole concept of rights in the US are, in the main, about restricting what the federal government and states can do individuals.

Whereas in Europe our concept of rights include restrictions on the state, but also also might restrict non-state actors. We also have a broader concept of rights that create obligations on the state and private actors to do things for individuals to their benefit.

txrx00003• 9 months ago

One step at a time. First the citizens ought to ensure that their own government is actually aligned with them.

immibis7• 9 months ago

Also, government actions that restrict your ability to lawfully compute. If the government is restricting it, then isn't it by definition unlawful?

AnthonyMouse2• 9 months ago

The main problem is not generally what government can and wishes to restrict, it's all the proprietary/private restrictions such as not being able to run whatever code you want on hardware you own.

But those come from laws, like DMCA 1201, that prohibit people from bypassing those restrictions. The problem being that the DMCA is a federal law and Montana can't fix that one, but at least they couldn't do state one?

Although this language seems particularly inelegant:

computational resources for lawful purposes

So they can't make a law against it unless they make a law against it?

novok2• 9 months ago

Well if you want to really get pedantic about it, it comes from the government enforcing those restrictions, like the DMCA, patent, or copyright, otherwise people would just do it willy-nilly for the most part.

sophrosyne42• 9 months ago

The proprietary restrictions are an extension of government, because the government grants private actors protection of their IP and enforces that IP. The only issue is that because we take IP protections for granted, we see it as an issue of the private actor rather than the state which has increasingly legislated against people's ability to execute code on computers they themselves own. But it should be simple. The government grants a monopoly in the form of IP to certain private actors - when that monopoly proves to be against the interests of the citizens, and I believe it is, then the government should no londer enforce that monopoly.

singron2• 9 months ago

"lawful" seems like an enormous loophole that makes this seem vacuous. If the government makes what you are doing unlawful, then it can be restricted. How would the government restrict you from doing something lawful in the first place? A bill of attainder? That's already illegal.

stephenlf• 9 months ago

It gives a legal foothold to those who would challenge later laws, akin to the bill of rights. Believe it or not, courts will honor that kind of thing, and many legislators act in good faith (at least at the state level).

throwaway384638• 9 months ago

Having dealt with lawyers for the past few months this is design

halfcat2• 9 months ago

If the government makes what you are doing unlawful, then it can be restricted

Always been the case. An interesting question you might explore, is whether rights exist. And the question is not whether they ought to exist.

marcosdumay• 9 months ago

That's as strong a rule as you can put in a normal law. If you want it to restrict what laws the government can pass, you need to put it in the constitution.

jjk166• 9 months ago

The difference is that while they can restrict the what, they can't restrict the how. Yeah they could make training LLMs illegal, but they can't for example put a quota on how much training you can do. Passing a law to ban something completely is a lot harder than passing a law that puts a "minor restriction" in place.

Ultimately any law can be repealed, so the loophole of changing the law in the future always exists. The point is that any future change to the law will take time and effort, so people can be confident in the near term that they won't be subject to the whims of a regulator or judge making decisions in a legal grayzone which may come down to which side of the bed they woke up on.

wseqyrku• 9 months ago

revert to human control within a reasonable amount of time.

They are going to seriously let it lose, when we talk about "revert to human control within a reasonable amount of time".

biztos• 9 months ago

revert to human control within a reasonable amount of time

“You have 15 seconds to comply.”

einpoklum• 9 months ago

So, the bill:

* Reaffirms (state) government power to restrict individuals in computing

* Suggests that when a restriction infringes on your rights, but not on some specific fundamental rights, then then governmenty actions need not be limited.

* Legitimizes the control of infrastructure by artificial intelligence systems.

* Mostly doesn't distinguish between people and commercial/coroprate entities: The rights you claim to have, they will claim to also have.

Wonderful...

vrighter3• 9 months ago

So it's just a lot of hot air, simply because it is not the government that is restricting our right to compute. But the device makers, and software developers.

Google deciding to monopolize app installations is a restriction on computing. Not the government.

Device makers locking bootloaders is a restriction on computing. Not the government.

Bank applications refusing to run unless running on a blessed-by-google firmware on a device with a locked bootloader is a restriction on computing. Not the government.

votepaunchy• 9 months ago

So it's just a lot of hot air, simply because it is not the government that is restricting our right to compute. But the device makers, and software developers.

No, it is only the government which can restrict these rights through violence and the threat of violence. Sony cannot restrict you from buying an Xbox or Nintendo.

colingauvin• 9 months ago

Government actions that restrict the ability to privately own or make use of computational resources for lawful purposes, which infringes on citizens' fundamental rights to property and free expression, must be limited to those demonstrably necessary and narrowly tailored to fulfill a compelling government interest in public health or safety.

....what does this say about DRM enforcement?

nayuki• 9 months ago

Exactly. I was hoping that this law would be the pushback to the overzealous prosecution of DeCSS, people who defeat DRM locks in order to lawfully back up the multimedia data that they already paid for, etc.

I also wonder what the impact of the law is on TPM chips on computers (restricting your ability to boot whatever OS you want), the locked-down iOS mobile app store, etc.

derbOac• 9 months ago

I admit I'm not knowledgeable about this law but as it's written it seems fairly meaningless to me, as it could be interpreted in many different ways, and the exclusion is a hole you could drive a metaphorical truck through.

sweetjuly• 9 months ago

Most of the laws which touch on DRM are federal, and so they override any state laws due to the supremacy clause.

sandworm1013• 9 months ago

Question nobody wants to talk about: will this prevent courts from issuing "no computer" restrictions on persons convicted or being investigated for crimes involving computers?

I have seen clients go for many years without cellphones because a judge cassually attached a "no computer" protective order. It is hard enough finding work as a convict or person under investigation, but 10x harder for those without cellphones and email.

FpUser4• 9 months ago

These restrictions must be scrapped completely. Along with this barbaric "criminal record" they delegate big chunk of the population to an underclass, well, unless they are rich.

twodave2• 9 months ago

I disagree for most crimes at least. Most crimes are either going to be some form of illegal dishonesty (theft, fraud, etc.) or violence. I would hope the company I work for is able to screen individuals for such behaviors before hiring them. “Willing to lie/cheat/steal for gain” in particular is such a huge red flag that any company who hired someone and ignored such red flags could reasonably be sued for negligence whenever that employee inevitably commits another similar crime. There are examples of this in the news literally today.

zootboy• 9 months ago

It does look to be a nudge in that direction, but it's not a slam-dunk. From my non-lawyer reading of the text, it seems like it would depend on how well you can argue that a total ban is not "narrowly tailored."

threecheese• 9 months ago

Any idea how “citizen” is defined here? Does this apply, like speech (and campaign donations), to corporations?

sandworm1013• 9 months ago

Yes. In written laws "citizen" generally means any person and/or organization subject to the laws of the state. It doesnt mean just living people who can vote.

Many a young law student has pontificated that as non-citizens, visiting tourists have no rights. There is no more loaded a word in US politics, and none more malleable under the law, as "citizen". It means something different in every context.

zkmon• 9 months ago

I mean, without this law, are the people not allowed to use computing? What exactly is the difference it brings? Does it force government to provide computing to all citizens?

manbart• 9 months ago

Makes it harder for people to oppose construction of data centers in their back yard

righthand• 9 months ago

Here is the official text: https://bills.legmt.gov/#/laws/bill/2/LC0292?open_tab=bill

hereme8882• 9 months ago

Good job, Montana. There was a trend in proposed and passed policies that were eating at rights to own machines. Examples: DMCA anti-circumvention (right to repair and jailbreak), export controls for high-end chips and cybersecurity tools, proposals to weaken/negate e2e encryption or delay security updates, AI rules that you can't train past X amount (shortsighted for future of personal compute capacity), restricting individuals from crypto mining, etc. So basically a trend of restricting software use or modification on general-purpose hardware. Once the tiniest relevant policy lands, it tends to expand from there. Hence what Montana did.

amanaplanacanal3• 9 months ago

Aren't all of those federal efforts? This state law would have no effect on those.

hereme8882• 9 months ago

Not sure, but to me the beauty of individual States who agree to Unite, is they get to keep all powers not specifically enumerated to the Federal Government, which creates 51 different A/B tests, to see which ones others would want to adopt or champion.

^^^ Ok, I just learned that concept from a recent tweet from Linus Torvalds.

pottertheotter• 9 months ago

I think this is just to make it so that data centers and crypto mining facilities can be built and operated where owners want. Makes it so zoning and environmental regulations can’t stop you as easily.

tdeck2• 9 months ago

People need to be more skeptical. This is not going to be used to uphold individual rights, and that's not the intention. This will be used not only to fast track data centers, but to support companies like Flock and push back against any attempts to regulate widespread surveillance.

dboreham• 9 months ago

Um. Montana resident here. The state also had quite strong anti-corruption (aka campaign finance) laws, since the copper baron days. But the US Supreme Court ruled that doesn't matter (because their corruption trumps any state anti-corruption law presumably). So don't expect this to amount to anything.

lr4444lr• 9 months ago

It's a nice gesture, but I'm not sure it will matter. AI is likely already on the Federal radar for superseding regulation.

eikenberry• 9 months ago

As long as laws are restricted to business services it shouldn't conflict. This is the right for citizens to use computation, business regulation is always a layer on top of that.

londons_explore• 9 months ago

I'm not sure exactly what this law does, but I would like to do with a computer anything I could theoretically and legally do with my mind.

Eg. If I'm a shopkeeper and see some customer coming in who stole stuff from the shop last time, I am within my rights to tell them to leave the shop.

However if I use a computer to do the same, many countries would disallow facial recognition, keeping databases of customers without consent, etc.

jstanley• 9 months ago

OK, but be careful what you wish for. We might get regulations on allowable thought if that's what's necessary to regulate computation.

suncemoje• 9 months ago

What does this make with Montana?

teucris• 9 months ago

I’m all for this movement provided it’s actually focusing on the rights of individuals rather than empowering corporations to own and operate massive amounts of computing power unchecked. When I first read the article, I frankly assumed this was meant to limit regulation on AI. From what I’ve read in the law that doesn’t seem to explicitly be the case, but given the organizations involved, I fully expect to see more in that vein.

frmersdog• 9 months ago

I feel super happy for the 5 people and 20 cows who will benefit. (This is intended less a jab at Montana specifically and more at state and national politicians who only seem to have political gumption when it concerns the needs of less-populated states with particular demographics.)

culi3• 9 months ago

Montana is the 7th least populated state but it has become a hub for the ultra-wealthy.[0][1] Many of those people made their wealth in tech.

It's not that surprising that a state this small could be easily influenced to pass a law that bans AI regulation

[0] https://montanafreepress.org/2023/04/17/how-an-avalanche-of-...

[1] https://www.npr.org/2024/08/17/nx-s1-5077696

perihelions• 9 months ago

The major context of this law is regulations like Executive Order 14110, of 2023 (since rescinded),

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_14110

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38067314 ("Executive Order on Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence (whitehouse.gov)"—337 comments)

malvim2• 9 months ago

I mean, isn’t there also law that says people have basic rights to food, housing, healthcare?

What will this law change, effectively?

SketchySeaBeast• 9 months ago

If there a law saying people have the right to food?

samdoesnothing6• 9 months ago

No...?

jandrewrogers3• 9 months ago

There is no basic right to food, housing, or healthcare. Your premise is wrong.

malvim2• 9 months ago

Okay, sorry, I’m not from the US. I thought the constitution might have something along those lines. I’m clearly wrong.

No wanting to bash this new law, just wanted to understand what it’s supposed to effectively change.

kragen3• 9 months ago

No, definitely not, not in Montana. Maybe in France or Vietnam.

Sleaker• 9 months ago

Interesting, has the EFF done a writeup/opinion on this legislation yet? I tend to trust them on breaking things down from the legalese and implications.

RRWagner• 9 months ago

I used to do presentations at educational technology conferences and many (30+)years ago I speculated that "in the future" computers that could create would be licensed. This was based on the observation that every significant past technology under user control was eventually licensed for permission to operate - radio, television, cars, the list is long.

PunchyHamster• 9 months ago

you need better examples than radio/tv/cars

radio/tv share the bands which are very narrow resource so licensing pretty much have to exist else there would be interference abound (imagine competing TV station just driving around with a jammer on competition

cars have that + the fact infrastructure is built by public money. Allowing anyone on anything with no training there literally costs lives

Or, copyright wise, to earn money in before digital world you kinda had to not have too much of copyright infringement - while artist today might get popular enough to subside on patreon/other form of digital tips, before it wouldn't be possible

Spivak• 9 months ago

This doesn't really disagree with the parent's thesis. You're just giving the long explanation for each event.

Any significant technological advancement necessarily uses some shared public resource which will drive people to regulate it. For AI folks are trying to get a lot of random things to stick: the power grid, water usage, public safety, disinformation.

cushychicken• 9 months ago

Oh wow, Greg Gianforte managed to do something in politics I don’t vehemently hate.

He’s not a very nice person but he did at least used to own a tech company.

nikitalita• 9 months ago

This is very transparently an attempt to prevent regulation of AI companies

nougati• 9 months ago

can you explain? it seems like the shutdown requirements specifically read as regulation which would apply to ai companies

culi3• 9 months ago

SB212 is an AI bill. It also includes some guidelines around AI-controlled infrastructure. But, as the source explicitly discusses, the focus clearly seems to be around preventing AI regulation of private individuals (individuals also means corporations in the US).

Nationally, the Right to Compute movement is gaining traction. Spearheaded by the grassroots group RightToCompute.ai, the campaign argues that computation — like speech and property — is a fundamental human right. “A computer is an extension of the human capacity to think,” the organization states.
The MRTCA stands in stark contrast to recent regulatory efforts in other states, such as California, Virginia, and New York, where proposals to rein in AI technologies have either failed or been heavily revised. Montana’s approach leans toward empowering individual users rather than restricting access.

unwise-exe• 9 months ago

Maybe someone could have just came up with in a vacuum, but it looks like a response to other attempts to restrict AI by saying that models trained with more than X amount of compute resources have to follow tons of extra rules.

And, per the article, the group pushing this is AI and blockchain companies.

culi3• 9 months ago

Montana, which has the 4th largest population of millionaires despite being the 7th lowest populated US state, passes a law to prevent AI regulation. I don't think that it's a coincidence that many of the wealthy individuals that have flocked to Montana made their wealth in the tech industry

cheesecompiler• 9 months ago

Why have they flocked to Montana? I had no idea.

arrowleaf• 8 months ago

Abundance of natural beauty and recreation opportunities

herewulf• 8 months ago

To maintain an appreciable distance from the plebes.

sam345• 9 months ago

It doesn't sound like anybody really knows or has any clue about what this law will do or be used for. Exactly what are the implications?

hx82• 9 months ago

I think this signals to data center builders that Montana wants their business, and this is really just a publicity stunt.

simulator5g• 9 months ago

This law prevents future politicians from writing laws that place restrictions on AI companies.

kragen3• 9 months ago

Damn right. Keep yer damn laws off my exocortex!

cat-whisperer• 9 months ago

its' time for government owned agencies to be more open to integrating intelligent systems. I would prefer if this happens in india too.

yapyap• 9 months ago

performative lawmaking

zjaffee• 9 months ago

Montana likely passed such a law because they have a governor and a senator who both came from the tech sector in big ways (sold the same company to oracle).

That said, there are a lot of other legal hurdles that would prevent Montana from ever being significant to the tech sector, despite the fact that I'm certain many skilled people would love to live there. From being the only state to not have at will employment to having a completely out of wack tax system (ratio between income and sales tax for a state entirely dependent on tourism), to countless restrictions (and often necessary because of water restrictions) on building large amounts of new housing, it just sin't happening.

yard2010• 9 months ago

I love how lawmakers jerk each other doing jack shit at the expense of the public.

This is a long text that actually says nothing.

namesbc• 9 months ago

Ug, this bill is all about preventing regulation of multinational corporations, it has nothing to do with the right for individuals to compute anything.

NoGravitas2• 9 months ago

Yep, I'd like to think this was a bill to protect my right to run any software I want to on hardware that I own, but it's actually a bill to keep Montana localities (cities, counties) from regulating or restricting data centers (noise, power, etc) in the interests of their residents. It's a state preemption bill restricting local democracy for the benefit of big business and polluters.

noahbp• 9 months ago

"Government actions that restrict the ability to privately own or make use of computational resources for lawful purposes, which infringes on citizens' fundamental rights to property and free expression, must be limited to those demonstrably necessary and narrowly tailored to fulfill a compelling government interest in public health or safety."

They can absolutely be regulated, but you must prove actual harm instead of "I don't want any data centers near me because of (conspiracy theory I read on Facebook)."

init1• 9 months ago

What useless drivel. If you already have property rights then you have the right to own and operate computers.

The main thrust of the law is directly self contradictory.

"Government actions that restrict the ability to privately own or make use of computational resources for lawful purposes..."

OK then just make the usage you don't like unlawful and you are allowed to violate this "protection".

hermannj314• 9 months ago

Can someone give an example of a law Montana passed or tried to pass that this law now prohibits a future legislature from passing?

I don't like a legislature compelling a future legislature to not have power, isn't that really a state constitutional thing?

This is going to be used to fuck over people, no way this is a good thing.

MangoToupe2• 9 months ago

Honestly, this sucks for people living in montana. It's hard to view this as a positive for anyone but business owners.

rvba• 9 months ago

Looks like regulatory capture. What do the AI bros want to do that they require such law?

I guess it is future proofing to defend scraping. Scraping that ignores robots.txt

fooker2• 9 months ago

Neat doublethink.

"Right to compute" but does not provide anyone with any right, waives away potential future regulations for tech companies.

BUT who could possibly need an escape hatch from AI regulations? Likely not Nvidia or Google or Apple,...

Companies and agencies making AI drone swarms or whatever the next gen AI policing/surveillance tech though, this is a godsend.

I have to wonder, where the palantir connection is. Is it hidden or are they brazen enough to flount it openly yet?

Nifty3929• 9 months ago

Really? - I took away that this does give people the right to use computers and AI technologies. I.e. the government can't ban or encumber those things. But I didn't see the full text in TFA. Can you elaborate a bit on how this does not meaningfully create any rights?

fooker2• 8 months ago

It's more about government not regulating companies than people.

The part about people says there has to be good reason to restrict people, which doesn't really mean much.

hellzbellz123• 8 months ago

individuals also means corporations in the US

Montana becomes first state to enshrine 'right to compute' into law

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