Montana passes Right to Compute act (2025)

https://www.westernmt.news/2025/04/21/montana-leads-the-nation-with-groundbreaking-right-to-compute-act/

by bilsbie • 4 months ago

274 237 4 months ago

jeffbee2• 4 months ago

It amuses me how contradictory the two bullet points from the article are.

- Strict limits on governmental regulation, wherein any restrictions must be demonstrably necessary and narrowly tailored to a compelling public safety or health interest.

- Mandatory safety protocols for AI-controlled critical infrastructure, including a shutdown mechanism and compulsory annual risk management reviews.

How were the necessity and scope of the second rule shown to satisfy the first rule?

hnsdev2• 4 months ago

Probably one applies for individuals while the other, as described, applies for infrastructure.

janice1999• 4 months ago

The 2nd rule is clearly intended to be a shield and distraction. It's there to pretend the law serves the public, when in reality it's designed to defend datacenter builders from the public interest. Politicians can talk about meaningless sci-fi concepts like SkyNet and how it can defeat it with off switches, instead of real issues like noise pollution, tax giveaways, electricity prices and mass surveillance.

lich_king• 4 months ago

You can read the actual bill here: https://legiscan.com/MT/text/SB212/id/3212152/Montana-2025-S...

In essence, it doesn't really mandate anything; it says you should have a plan, and only for "critical infrastructure facilities":

"Section 4. Infrastructure controlled by critical artificial intelligence system. (1) When critical infrastructure facilities are controlled in whole or in part by a critical artificial intelligence system, the deployer shall develop a risk management policy after deploying the system that is reasonable and considers guidance and standards in the latest version of the artificial intelligence risk management framework from the national institute of standards and technology, the ISO/IEC 4200 artificial intelligence standard from the international organization for standardization, or another nationally or internationally recognized risk management framework for artificial intelligence systems. A plan prepared under federal requirements constitutes compliance with this section."

So it's essentially lip service to AI safety, probably to quell some objections to a bill that otherwise limits regulation of tech platforms.

jeffbee2• 4 months ago

I did read it. The point is there are no findings that justify the regulation in light of the grant of rights in the same bill. The only WHEREAS that approaches the level of a finding amounts to "many are saying..."

dlev_pika3• 4 months ago

Orwell called it “double speak”

chrisjj• 4 months ago

Not quite. He coined "newspeak" and "doublethink".

terminalshort6• 4 months ago

any restrictions must be demonstrably necessary and narrowly tailored to a compelling public safety or health interest

This should be the default policy on regulation. We shouldn't need a specific law to enact it.

s_dev• 4 months ago

I really dislike how 'compute' as a noun took over 'computational' as an adjective. I just find the sentence 'I need more computational resources' flows so much nicer than ''I need more compute'.

hackyhacky2• 4 months ago

How about "we've got the best nuclear"

codethief• 4 months ago

The "compute" in "right to compute" could also be a verb, though. :-)

soulofmischief3• 4 months ago

Well, language evolves, and I personally prefer compute as a noun when talking about resources. It's great though because we can each say it in our preferred way without judging one another.

sockaddr• 4 months ago

I agree. This is language evolving. If someone from the 16th century could hear a modern well-educated person speak English today they would likely be horrified at how degenerate it would sound to them.

So I don't think current English is in some perfect state that should not change.

On god.

jasonlotito2• 4 months ago

It's a verb, not a noun.

PaulDavisThe1st7• 4 months ago

Please don't judge me for what I say, or do, or who I really am.

hackyhacky2• 4 months ago

Interpret the word "compute" in the title as a verb, not a noun. "I have the right to compute" is analogous grammatically to "I have the right to vote" or "I have the right to assemble"

moate5• 4 months ago

Glad Montana is securing the right to do math.

DennisP• 4 months ago

"Right to compute" sounds to me more like they're using "compute" as a verb, which predates "computational" by a couple centuries.

moate5• 4 months ago

Someone said "right to computers' and someone else said "that sounds dumb...make it compute!"

jasonlotito2• 4 months ago

Compute is the...

FTA: right to own, access, and use computational resources

It's a verb.

kmeisthax• 4 months ago

This is extremely light on details, but I'm pretty sure "Right to Compute" has absolutely nothing to do with software freedom and everything to do with making it harder to oppose giant datacenter buildouts for AI companies, so they can blast you with infrasound, spike the price of electricity and RAM, and build surveillance systems to take away your rights.

perfect-blue• 4 months ago

My thoughts exactly. I reads a lot like they are trying to minimize the state's power to regulate AI. I'm not sure that's such a good thing. Regulation is one of the only ways that we can manage the ``bads'' that come with any new technology. In the US, we've never been very good at regulating new technologies before industry stakeholders entrench themselves in the lobbying circuit.

hrimfaxi• 4 months ago

Well they do define compelling government interest to include

"Compelling government interest " means a government interest of the highest order in protecting the public that cannot be achieved through less restrictive means. This includes but is not limited to: (a) ensuring that a critical infrastructure facility controlled by an artificial intelligence system develops a risk management policy; (b) addressing conduct that deceives or defrauds the public; (c) protecting individuals, especially minors, from harm by a person who distributes deepfakes and other harmful synthetic content with actual knowledge of the nature of that material; and (d) taking actions that prevent or abate common law nuisances created by physical datacenter infrastructure.

D seems to address that potentially.

glaslong• 4 months ago

Proactively shielding themselves from the eventual, justified, realization that spiking a population's price of water and electricity such that they cannot use them IS an externality just as bad as polluting the water supply.

terminalshort6• 4 months ago

Yeah, I have relatives in Ashburn VA with over 200 data centers running and it's practically uninhabitable /s

Avicebron• 4 months ago

“This bill will help position Montana as a world-class destination for AI and Data Center investment.”

https://frontierinstitute.org/frontier-institute-statement-i...

Ah.

gwerbin3• 4 months ago

Strict limits on governmental regulation wherein any restrictions must be demonstrably necessary and narrowly tailored to a compelling public safety or health interest. Mandatory safety protocols for AI-controlled critical infrastructure, including a shutdown mechanism and compulsory annual risk management reviews.

Read: industry can do whatever we want, but the government also has to put up barriers to entry that favor large incumbents.

This has nothing to do with rights or even computing, it's just regulatory capture.

ToucanLoucan2• 4 months ago

You know if we're gonna pass laws to make it illegal for the government to interfere with the Torment Nexus, the least they could do is not gaslight us with the fucking name of the law. Just tell us the billionaires get to fuck the planet in the eye and the rest of us have to deal with it, at least it's honest that way.

tzs2• 4 months ago

Including a shutdown mechanism and doing an annual risk management review favors large incumbents?

terminalshort6• 4 months ago

There are no small businesses building data centers.

noahbp• 4 months ago

It’s a good thing that businesses can make investment plans with legible rules to follow. Too many communities are blocking data centers for no good reason, and this preempts NIMBYs and unreasonable local opposition.

“What about my water?”- not an issue in this area.

“What about my electric bill?”- we’re signing long term contracts with local power companies or building out our own capacity; we eat the marginal costs and don’t increase your bill.

“What about noise?”- we’re far enough away from the nearest person that they cannot hear us; fans are x decibels at y distance; not a problem.

“I saw on Facebook that data centers poison the water and spy on me”- seek help, you cannot block us from building out and giving you oodles of tax money for this nonsense reason.

boppo1• 4 months ago

Damn I saw the headline and though it was a bill about general computing

Mistletoe• 4 months ago

So it should be renamed Right to Datacenter Act. And here I thought they were giving people power over their private computers and being surveilled on them…

Reminds me of some bill in my state about Right to Farm and when you looked deeper it was about rights for huge corporate hog farms to dump waste in the rivers. The slimiest corps always do this 1984 level double talk when they name their bills. It’s a dead giveaway. Citizens United, oh wow cool this is about protecting citizens!

quotemstr• 4 months ago

And is that supposed to be a bad thing?

saghm2• 4 months ago

At the very least, it's a bit weird to be calling it a Right to Compute if the actual goal is to enable investments. It's hard not to be concerned about whether it's even about establishing a right at all, or if that's entirely posturing to try to build support for something that isn't really about rights at all. At that point, it's hard to trust anything else they're saying about the motives, since they've established that they're willing to fudge things to make it harder to argue against.

The point isn't whether it's bad or good, but that it establishes a pattern of inconsistency.

wsve2• 4 months ago

It's legislation to prevent the regulation of AI and data centers. Yes, that's a bad thing

saintfire• 4 months ago

If it was a good thing they wouldn't mislead everyone by naming and positioning it as a bill protecting citizens just to trojan horse it in.

notaharvardmba• 4 months ago

They just want to fire up Colstrip again, 4 huge coal power generation plants that literally print money. If you’re burning shit for AI it’s fine now I guess.

Cyphase• 4 months ago

I read "position" as "poison" a few times before I got it.

lukeschlather• 4 months ago

I was really hoping this gave people the right to use their computers, but it really looks like it simply prevents "the government" from regulating the right to "make use of computational resources." So Google or Apple can still prevent me from using my phone for lawful purposes, the government just can't regulate it (and the government might not be able to write restrictions that prevent manufacturers from violating my right to compute.)

einpoklum• 4 months ago

Imagine if Montata required that all compute platforms sold in the state to be free of user restriction: That they be amenable to modification, that all source code, firmware and hardware specs be open, and when that is not the case - the company would be compelled to release the relevant information on pain of having assets seized, required to refund payments etc. That would have been a hoot :-)

sroussey2• 4 months ago

Simply not sell to that state.

sophrosyne42• 4 months ago

Google or Apple only hold an ability to prevent you to use your phone because the government itself enforces IP. So the restriction against regulations in this bill is only a partial and incomplete restriction against the government from interfering with people's right to compute.

hnsdev2• 4 months ago

With laws such as the Brazilian one or the one proposed in New York, I am curious to know what will be the future for computing. On one hand, forbidding and limiting people from using computers as they wish is somewhat impossible, as too many computers that don't have restrictions have already been produced. You can always use old hardware and, with open source projects, fork an old version that will respect your right to compute. At some point though it will be a problem as hardware no longer works and software becomes incompatible with everything. The thing is that those who will probably be doing it mostly are people that already grew accustomed to not live in an Orwellian state, while, on the other hand, newer generations will all be using new systems with these restrictions, as if they were normal. The smart ones will find ways of circumventing it (as if it wouldn't be hard to get your parents CC and verify it as if you were over 18).

Given that, they will be computing in a restrictive and controlled environment. I feel sorry for them.

I am going to college (Computer Science) as an older student with previous experience in programming, and it never ceases to amaze me that the current generation of students doesn't think out of the box and is completely dependent on ChatGPT. We all suffered from conditioning from governments and corporations throughout the years, but it is accelerating at an alarming rate.

Acts like this (the one from Montana) are positive, but unfortunate that they simply have to exist and somewhat irrelevant when the big dogs (California, New York and whole countries such as Australia) approve legislation that will promptly be followed by most companies/projects, which will in turn force this way of things happening everywhere else.

heavyset_go• 4 months ago

This won't touch age verification and surveillance laws, it's not meant to protect people, it's meant to protect the interests of capital

dynm3• 4 months ago

I think the main content of this law (https://legiscan.com/MT/text/SB212/id/3212152) is just two paragraphs. I'd suggest reading them yourself rather than relying on secondary description:

"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."

"When critical infrastructure facilities are controlled in whole or in part by a critical artificial intelligence system, the deployer shall develop a risk management policy after deploying the system that is reasonable and considers guidance and standards in the latest version of the artificial intelligence risk management framework from the national institute of standards and technology, the ISO/IEC 4200 artificial intelligence standard from the international organization for standardization, or another nationally or internationally recognized risk management framework for artificial intelligence systems. A plan prepared under federal requirements constitutes compliance with this section."

In particular, I think the reporting is straight wrong that there's a shutdown requirement. That was in an earlier version (https://legiscan.com/MT/text/SB212/id/3078731) and remains in the title of this version, but seems to have been removed from the actual text.

RobRivera3• 4 months ago

So the government is afforded the opportunity to constrict compute if for a government interest.

This bill seems to expand powers, not restrict

dynm3• 4 months ago

Before the law, I think the state government or local governments could (by passing a law) restrict computing for any reason, even without a government interest. Now, they'd have to repeal this first.

toomanystraws• 4 months ago

"... the deployer shall develop a risk management policy after deploying the system...."

This is a complete sham. Anything really geared towards protecting people would have protections in place before deployment.

scuff3d• 4 months ago

When you contextualize the law with comments like this

"The initiative... contrasts with recent restrictive legislation efforts in states like California and Virginia. Zolnikov, a noted advocate for privacy, has been instrumental in pushing for tech-friendly policies that ensure individual liberties in an evolving digital landscape.

"'As governments around the world and in our own country try to crack down on individual freedom and gain state control over modern technologies,' Zolnikov said. 'Montana is doing the opposite by protecting freedom and restraining the government.'"

And it's the normal framing we always see with this crap. This is more an attempt to protect corporations from regulation then it is to protect individuals.

torginus2• 4 months ago

Ah, finally something that the common man wants. A mandatory risk management strategy compliant with ISO/IEC guidelines

tzs2• 4 months ago

Hmmm. "[...] the deployer shall develop a risk management policy after deploying the system [...]".

I wonder why it is after rather than before?

hermannj3143• 4 months ago

When a "right to..." law is passed, there is usually an accompanying narrative that explains a past injustice that will be corrected. Matthew Shepard hate crime, Civil Rights Voting act, etc.

The absence of such a story makes me think this law doesn't protect shit. What exactly did a Montanian get killed or arrested trying to do with a computer that is now protected? Can I use AI during a traffic stop or use AI to surveil and doxx governemnt employees? What exactly is the government giving up by granting me this right?

Or is this just about supressing opposition to data centers?

culi2• 4 months ago

Yeah I think it's pretty obviously the AI industry trying to ban its own regulation

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.

dismalaf5• 4 months ago

Regulation is just regulatory capture by incumbents and also a national security risk.

staplers• 4 months ago

  computation — like speech and property — is a fundamental human right

Computation however requires a vast supply chain where certain middlemen have a near monopoly on distribution of said "fundamental right". The incentives for lobbyists seems clear.

I don't necessarily disagree with the idea, but until profit is shared with taxpayers, this is a one-way transaction of taxpayers bankrolling AI companies.

akersten3• 4 months ago

Eh, if states can pass restrictive laws on AI in absence of a correspondingly negative motivating event, I don't see any contradiction in doing the opposite.

moate5• 4 months ago

>absence of a correspondingly negative motivating event.

You don't think there's reasons pass laws banning AI...datacenters?

Because what state is banning the concept of AI? They're banning/restricting the creation of a type of infrastructure within their borders because they feel that is detrimental to their citizens. Maybe it's NIMBY/Luditte BS to you, but people not wanting their resources to go help ensure some dork can have a chat-bot girlfriend seems normal to me.

gosub1004• 4 months ago

so the jobs have to be lost _first_ , then we can ban it?

autoexec2• 4 months ago

if states can pass restrictive laws on AI in absence of a correspondingly negative motivating event...

If you mean besides the extensive harm to air quality, the large land fingerprint of data centers, the massive strain on water resources and treatment facilities, the insane electricity demands resulting in skyrocketing prices pushed onto everyone else, the deafening noise pollution, and what they've done to the price of RAM, then sure. And that's just the data centers!

The usage of AI itself has resulted in all kinds of harm and even actual deaths. AI has wrongfully denied people healthcare coverage they were entitled to preventing or delaying needed surgeries and treatments. There's a growing list of LLM related suicides (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaths_linked_to_chatbots). The use of AI in parole systems has kept people locked behind bars when they shouldn't have been due to biases in the bots making decisions. AI used for self-driving driving cars have killed pedestrians and other drivers. There are thousands of AI generated harms tracked here: https://airisk.mit.edu/ai-incident-tracker

Eridrus• 4 months ago

This is mostly signaling, but NY is currently considering a law to prevent AI systems from giving legal and medical advice: https://statescoop.com/new-york-bill-would-ban-chatbots-lega...

arendtio• 4 months ago

I don't think that this is a good idea. For medical applications, I can understand that LLMs are not the best solution, since they are so bad with numbers/probabilities. But for legal advice, I think they should be pretty good.

So the only reason I can think of to forbid such use cases is that people in those professions fear being replaced by machines.

dboreham• 4 months ago

(2025)

culi2• 4 months ago

Repost from 4 months ago here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45865289

TL;DR: Basically the AI industry trying to ban governments from regulating it

preinheimer• 4 months ago

What about a “right to create act” giving people the right to create things and not have their creation be ingested to train ai for billion dollar companies?

ProllyInfamous3• 4 months ago

Some sort of pre-emptive auto-opt-AI't.

It's ridiculous that AIco's arguments are dwindling down to "it's not copyright infringement to ingest others' work and make 'derivatives' [which often are identical to original authors' works]."

----

We desperately need younger politicians, who can not only keep up with information more sharply (i.e. aren't legally decades-retireable), but also are of the age where their own children are being affected by government re-funding flows away from youth/education/future.

At this point I'm willing to concede that our future probably has companies' individual LLM/genAI products competing against one-another, as digital politicians ["the digital pimp, hard at work... we have needs"--Matrix' Mouse]. Nobody knows how either flesh nor silicon congressmen work, inside; but I think the latter could act more human[e]ly...

PaulDavisThe1st7• 4 months ago

Do you believe that for younger people this question (about derivativeness) is clearly settled? If so, how?

selectively• 4 months ago

The tragedy is that 'right to compute' is such a great name for something actually useful. Requiring OEMs to allow users to load any OS they want, requiring OEMs to allow full control over a device/OS ('root access') etc.

Instead, it's wasted on AI slop.

amelius• 4 months ago

Yeah, "you can own compute hardware" doesn't really help if nobody makes hardware that can be owned.

Nevermark• 4 months ago

"Write to Computer 2.0" sounds good to me. Might as well slipstream.

The "Citizen Right to Compute" complement to the "Data Center Right to Compute".

Use the latter as leverage for the former. What politician wants to be seen downvoting (comparable) individual's right they already gave to data centers?

righthand• 4 months ago

This is a law designed to force data centers to be built. This is nothing but a bipartisan corporate handout. Nothing to celebrate. The law makers should be ashamed.

EDIT for the downvoters, from the law:

Any restrictions placed by the government on the ability to privately own or make use of computational resources for lawful purposes must be limited to those demonstrably necessary and narrowly tailored to fulfill a compelling government interest in public health or safety.

This basically means you can't use government action to stop the building of a data-center.

Vaslo• 4 months ago

Maybe some people disagree with governments interfering with this - not saying that’s how I feel but that could be the downvote reason.

Your explanation seems reasonable.

xbar• 4 months ago

Do I have to back in age verification to my OS?

152334H• 4 months ago

Apr 21, 2025

why is this posted now?

kid64• 4 months ago

What an egregiously disingenous piece of legislation. Not surprised.

j2kun• 4 months ago

The article is full of PR-speak. What is really going on in this law?

carlsborg• 4 months ago

This is why Montana Civil Defense survives when skynet goes rogue.

cat_plus_plus• 4 months ago

So what does liberal even mean these days? California is passing bs like age verification in OS and Montana is protecting my right to leave the way I want in my own home, running whatever AI models suit me as long as I am not bothering anyone. That's just another "none of government business" personal freedom issue like pot or sexuality, why aren't blue states all over it. And yes, using tuned LLMs can be like an acid trip, but the distance between having a trip at home and tangible harm is much greater than in the case of access to guns, knives, power tools, cars and rodent poison yet at least some of these are widely available to law abiding citizens in every state. Government interventions can be staged at the points where there is evidence of actual imminent harm, like problematic public behavior. Why are Democrats the new "Reefer Madness" pearl clutchers and why should I still believe they have anything to do with living the way you want?

bitwize• 4 months ago

1) Right now, as things stand, the Democrats are our only alternative to something far more evil. Until we ratify a new constitution which implements a proportional, parliamentary government, the two-party system means you have to pick the lesser of two evils. In the interim maybe we can banish the Republican party to a niche constituency of openly reprehensible racists and bigots, and set up the Democrats as the new right wing and the Greens as the new left wing, but right now it is morally incumbent upon every American to vote Democrat.

2) Read your Marx. Liberty doesn't arrive from toxic individualism, it arrives from the fulfillment of man's nature as a social-creative animal. AI is a tool used by the bourgeoisie to further alienate us from each other; as is right-libertarian individualism.

dlev_pika3• 4 months ago

They are so proud to hand over all control to the corporations, while pretending this is a consumer protection centered build - wild

burnt-resistor• 4 months ago

That's how fascist bootlickers roll.

arjie• 4 months ago

One of America's greatest strengths is the structure of it as a federation. It allows for states like this to take the lead in expanding datacenter infrastructure while other states can choose to shutdown such expansions. This was perhaps more significant in COVID-19 reactions in America, but datacenters have few such externalities and so this is an even more compelling example of variation between states.

The scaling of federal power with population is also significant as states like Texas that allow for more housing to be built will probably receive more seats at the next apportionment while states like California will lose seats. Overall, pretty neat to see the design of America work quite well like this.

cortesoft8• 4 months ago

I generally agree with this idea, but

but datacenters have few such externalities

Is wild. Energy consumption is one of the biggest externalities that exists today, since global climate change is completely independent of location. Greenhouse gases do not care about borders.

tadfisher3• 4 months ago

Also wild when Musk is freebasing methane in Tennessee with zero consequences.

PaulDavisThe1st7• 4 months ago

While it is not a true "externality", data center use of water is a strong community/regional cost that effectively removes 1 person/1 vote. Those with the financial resources to buy more water get the water, those without do not.

Perhaps you think that the distribution of financial resources reflects what is in society's best interests - that Meta, Google et al. have demonstrated their utility in ways that make them literally more important than people with insufficient wealth to outbid those companies for water.

Many of us do not.

polski-g2• 4 months ago

"Datacenter water usage" is a comment I'd expect to see on Reddit--not a VC forum with allegedly intelligent people.

terminalshort6• 4 months ago

What fictional universe do you live in where people are not getting water because they have been outbid by some data center? As for commercial use of water, we absolutely should do it that way instead of the archaic water rights system we have now.

matheusmoreira2• 4 months ago

Pointless and deceptive. A real "right to compute" law would ban remote attestation, would ban discrimination against users based on the "trustworthiness" of their systems, would force companies to allow custom software and firmware as well as provide technical documentation and specifications to users so they can repair and modify the systems they bought.

tt248• 4 months ago

Wrong. This is not how rights work.

You have the right to not provide custom software and firmware and technical documentation, the right to enforce remote attestation, and the right to refuse service to whoever you wish.

thfuran4• 4 months ago

You have the right to not provide custom software and firmware and technical documentation,

Just like all food sellers have the right not to provide documentation on the ingredients and nutrition of their products?

matheusmoreira2• 4 months ago

Your right to do all that should be taken away. Our freedom to own our computers is more important than your right to punish us for trying to do so by banishing us from digital society via remote attestation. Your only option should be to accept that we own our computers and deal with us on those terms. Refusing to do so should be criminalized on the same level as racism.

jamesgill• 4 months ago

"The initiative, propelled by advocacy from State Senator Daniel Zolnikov and organizations like the Frontier Institute"

Always follow the money: https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Frontier_Institute

torginus2• 4 months ago

Excuse me, the article states that this bill was signed on april 17th of last year. How has this become suddenly relevant now?

I would say considering there has been almost a year since this bill was signed, what happened since then? Was it applied to hurt people's interests? Did it drive investment?

Are Montanans demonstrably better or worse off because of this in some way?

bradley13• 4 months ago

Most of the comments are cynical. I read this, at least the "right to compute" part, as a reaction to the current onslaught of censorship and age verification laws. Which is a good thing.

The AI part honestly looks fairly harmless, just applying existing standards, but I may be wrong there...

geon• 4 months ago

So drm is now illegal?

artninja1988• 4 months ago

IANAL but iirc DRM is governed by federal law, specifically the DMCA. A state law cant override a federal statute, so even if Montana's law were interpreted very broadly, it couldnt nullify the DMCA

elgertam• 4 months ago

Montana is both cold and sparely populated, so I figure data centers would be good there. Also, I figure Zefram Cochrane could use all that compute for his warp theories in a few decades.

maxerickson• 4 months ago

I expect that access to inexpensive energy is more important than the population density, typical ambient or "favorable" state laws (this law doesn't seem to really do all that much).

Like the region I live in is cold and has lots of water, but we import energy, might as well build closer to the regional mega cities (where it is still relatively cold, with relatively abundant water). There is some kerfuffle going on in the county here about preventing data centers, and I can't imagine there is even anyone interested in building one.

muyuu• 4 months ago

I want a right to compute without having to identify myself, or otherwise give any information about myself to the computing system itself.

I was hoping for that as a reaction to the current tyrannical movements worldwide to end anonymous personal computing.

comet_browser• 4 months ago

The interesting structural tension here is that "Right to Compute" framing appeals to individualist/property-rights instincts, but the actual beneficiaries are hyperscalers and large data center operators. Individual compute rights already exist — nobody is stopping you from running a server.

What the bill actually does (based on typical legislation of this type) is preempt local zoning and environmental review for large compute facilities. That's a legitimate policy choice, but calling it a "right" is doing a lot of rhetorical work.

For comparison: Wyoming and Texas have done similar things for data centers via tax incentives rather than regulatory preemption. Both approaches get data centers built; they just differ in who captures the value.

Nekorosu• 4 months ago

Is it for citizens or billionaire citizens?

mdx97• 4 months ago

I encourage anyone here to just read the bill text instead of this article. It will pretty clearly resolve any confusion caused by this article.

philipallstar• 4 months ago

Positive rights are stupid.

kevin061• 4 months ago

"right to compute"

Oh cool!

Look inside

No mention of:

- Self-repair

- Self-service

- Hardware and software modifications

- Protecting consumers from proprietary anti-circumvention tools

- Bolstering open source

- Better access to technology in early ages (through funding primary schools and libraries)

- Dedicated computer and Internet crisis response teams to tackle disinformation, cyberattacks, cyberbullying, and state-sponsored attacks

- Improving citizen's access to End-to-End encryption software - Sovereign AI and software

Very cool, Montana. What a load of nothing.

redgridtactical• 4 months ago

The name "Right to Compute" implies this protects individual users, but the actual text reads more like a shield for datacenter operators against local zoning and environmental review. Worth reading the bill itself (SB 212) before celebrating. The "after deployment" risk management requirement for critical infrastructure AI systems is also pretty toothless. Safety frameworks that kick in after you're already running seem backwards.

mwkaufma• 4 months ago

"Datacenters are people, too!"

b00ty4breakfast• 4 months ago

From the folks that brought you the Patriot Act and No Child Left Behind!

what a weaselly name, this would make the most cutthroat ad exec blush with embarrassment

notepad0x90• 4 months ago

We need the opposite, and you'd think Montana would be leading that opposite effort.

I need the right to not use a computer for any reason whatsoever! Every business transaction, doctors visit, buying food, it all requires an app or a phone these days. it will only get worse. We need the right to not use some techbro's app in order to survive.

throwawayk7h• 4 months ago

Sadly this does not force phone vendors to allow bootloader unlocking.

Montana passes Right to Compute act (2025)

Related Stories