[HN Gopher] Montana passes Right to Compute act (2025)
___________________________________________________________________
Montana passes Right to Compute act (2025)
Author : bilsbie
Score : 228 points
Date : 2026-03-14 13:59 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.westernmt.news)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.westernmt.news)
| jeffbee wrote:
| 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?
| hnsdev wrote:
| Probably one applies for individuals while the other, as
| described, applies for infrastructure.
| janice1999 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| jeffbee wrote:
| 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_pika wrote:
| Orwell called it "double speak"
| chrisjj wrote:
| Not quite. He coined "newspeak" and "doublethink".
| terminalshort wrote:
| > 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 wrote:
| 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'.
| hackyhacky wrote:
| How about "we've got the best nuclear"
| codethief wrote:
| The "compute" in "right to compute" could also be a verb,
| though. :-)
| soulofmischief wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| jasonlotito wrote:
| It's a verb, not a noun.
| soulofmischief wrote:
| It can be used as both.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| Please don't judge me for what I say, or do, or who I really
| am.
| hackyhacky wrote:
| 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"
| moate wrote:
| Glad Montana is securing the right to do math.
| anonym29 wrote:
| It's hilarious that they think it needs to be codified into
| law. As if the right to do math wasn't intrinsic, and could
| be even theoretically be revoked by the government, lol.
| ahsillyme wrote:
| I think it betrays cynicism about the tendency for
| single-objective optimizing market actors to rent-seek
| and cartelize. I don't think it's a stretch at all. On
| the surface it would be equally preposterous to suggest
| that breathing could be theoretically revoked by the
| government, which truly is preposterous but we do have
| those laws in place depending on whether the air you
| breathe has "illegal substances" in it. But then again,
| explicit revocation is a high bar when you can throttle
| the free use of computational resources by regulatory
| capture: the AI incumbents could say, for example, that
| AI is so dangerous that it must be kept out of the hands
| of the unwashed masses. Another excellent strategy (with
| a rather high bar to entry) would be to distort the
| markets themselves by ensuring that your prospective
| renters can't afford basic compute.
| DennisP wrote:
| "Right to compute" sounds to me more like they're using
| "compute" as a verb, which predates "computational" by a couple
| centuries.
| moate wrote:
| Someone said "right to computers' and someone else said "that
| sounds dumb...make it compute!"
| jasonlotito wrote:
| Compute is the...
|
| FTA: right to own, access, and use computational resources
|
| It's a verb.
| kmeisthax wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| terminalshort wrote:
| Yeah, I have relatives in Ashburn VA with over 200 data centers
| running and it's practically uninhabitable /s
| Avicebron wrote:
| > "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.
| gwerbin wrote:
| > 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.
| ToucanLoucan wrote:
| 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.
| bigfishrunning wrote:
| They can't be that blatant, that's how you lose your next
| term
| saghm wrote:
| The second term for the "drain the swamp" president
| implies otherwise (it did take another cycle, but that
| arguably had more to do with covid than corruption).
| basilgohar wrote:
| That's because his opponent and her party were fully
| behind and financing a genocide in Gaza at the time.
| pixl97 wrote:
| I mean that seemed to happen anyway...
| RRWagner wrote:
| You cant drain a swamp by filling it with billionaire
| alligators.
| jfengel wrote:
| Practically every law, and lobbying organization, is named
| for exactly the opposite of what it does. If I see the
| Puppies and Orphans Protection Act of 2028, I assume its
| purpose is to use puppies to strangle orphans. Proponents
| will point to the limitation on how many puppies you can
| use per orphan.
|
| Similarly, if I see the People For X organization, I assume
| they are against X. The Committee for Green Spaces and
| Clean Air is guaranteed to be an oil company.
|
| Once you develop that reflex, everything calms down. Though
| admittedly, I passed a sign for Fidos for Freedom. I'm not
| quite sure what Fidos Against Freedom does. I think they
| give dogs to disabled people, and they bark at you if you
| try to leave the house.
| ToucanLoucan wrote:
| All I can think of is Dr. Augustine from Avatar. "They're
| just pissing on us without even the courtesy of calling
| it rain."
| idle_zealot wrote:
| There is something that this tactic misses: when people
| try to do good things, the name of their organization or
| policy is usually pretty honest. In an environment like
| ours, though, that still means that your strategy of
| assuming the opposite meaning has something like a 95%
| expected success rate.
| tzs wrote:
| Including a shutdown mechanism and doing an annual risk
| management review favors large incumbents?
| autoexec wrote:
| The shutdown mechanism would have existed anyway and a
| "risk management review" sounds exactly like the sort of
| toothless policy that's supposed to make people feel better
| without actually putting any limits or enforcement on the
| industry
| Onavo wrote:
| Not to mention 100K in consultancy fees for compliance.
| nradov wrote:
| Why would the industry need any limits or enforcement?
| ctmnt wrote:
| I can't tell if you're joking or not, but it's funny
| either way.
| derektank wrote:
| Annual risk management reviews definitely favor large
| incumbents. Large incumbents have the ability to hire and
| maintain compliance teams. That burden is definitely a
| barrier to entry to new competitors (though not an
| insurmountable one).
| lokar wrote:
| But it only applies to AI controlling critical
| infrastructure, you think this is an issue in practice?
|
| I would think if a power plant deploys some AI model to
| optimize something or other, it would be on the plant
| operator to perform the reviews, regardless of who they
| get the AI from.
| terminalshort wrote:
| There are no small businesses building data centers.
| primax wrote:
| Well, there probably are some in there. Data centre
| designers, comms experts, architects, electricians, etc.
| Lot of smaller organisations benefiting from the work.
| noahbp wrote:
| 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.
| dickersnoodle wrote:
| "We don't want you here" sounds like a perfectly good
| reason to me.
| idiotsecant wrote:
| There is an _incredibly_ good reason not to have
| datacenters in montana - a whole lot of the additional load
| will be from colstrip - one of the dirtiest coal mines left
| in the United States.
| flats wrote:
| I don't think it counts as NIMBYism if you don't want it in
| yours or anybody's backyard, ever. I would describe that as
| principled opposition.
|
| Also, what happens when we don't need such enormous data
| centers anymore? How many communities in the U.S. are
| saddled with enormous dead malls while the developers walk
| away with zero liability?
| soulofmischief wrote:
| This research presentation from Benn Jordan will hopefully
| change your mind on the noise issue and its consequences. I
| highly recommend it.
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bP80DEAbuo
| seu wrote:
| > giving you oodles of tax money for this nonsense reason.
|
| You've never heard of tax avoidance, have you?
|
| https://itep.org/trump-meta-tesla-alphabet-amazon-obbba-
| taxe...
| boppo1 wrote:
| Damn I saw the headline and though it was a bill about
| general computing
| Mistletoe wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| And is that supposed to be a bad thing?
| saghm wrote:
| 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.
| wsve wrote:
| It's legislation to prevent the regulation of AI and data
| centers. Yes, that's a bad thing
| lukeschlather wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 :-)
| sroussey wrote:
| Simply not sell to that state.
| sophrosyne42 wrote:
| 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.
| hnsdev wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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
| dynm wrote:
| 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.
| RobRivera wrote:
| So the government is afforded the opportunity to constrict
| compute if for a government interest.
|
| This bill seems to expand powers, not restrict
| dynm wrote:
| 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.
| RobRivera wrote:
| How?
|
| I know the whole 90s meme of 'I am a controlled munition'
| went around because cryptography was labeled an ordnance
| subject to export control laws, and therefore code that
| performed those kind of computations were forbidden to be
| sold abroad, liable to a felony.
|
| What happens today? Government gets rights to source code,
| logs, and rubber stamps/rejects your code from executing in
| the cloud?
|
| Government limits your access to commodity infrastructure?
| dynm wrote:
| How? By default, state governments can pass basically
| whatever laws they want. They don't have (theoretically)
| limited enumerated powers like the federal government.
| RobRivera wrote:
| Im not asking for policy mechanics, I'm asking for
| implementation detail clarification.
| lokar wrote:
| djb had to (with the EFF) spend years in court to
| establish (on appeal) that writing crypto code was a
| speech issue:
|
| https://www.eff.org/cases/bernstein-v-us-dept-justice
|
| Laws like this make it much simpler for someone to
| challenge a law or regulation. They don't have to
| convince the judge (and possibly appeals court) that
| building or using a computer is a form of protected
| expression, this law says it is.
|
| It may seem kind of flimsy or non-consequential, but
| while it's not a massive change, it is a really change
| and it's constructive.
| toomanystraws wrote:
| "... 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 wrote:
| 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.
| torginus wrote:
| Ah, finally something that the common man wants. A mandatory
| risk management strategy compliant with ISO/IEC guidelines
| tzs wrote:
| Hmmm. "[...] the deployer shall develop a risk management
| policy after deploying the system [...]".
|
| I wonder why it is _after_ rather than _before_?
| hermannj314 wrote:
| 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?
| culi wrote:
| 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.
| dismalaf wrote:
| Regulation is just regulatory capture by incumbents and also
| a national security risk.
| hdgvhicv wrote:
| You argue that food safety tellregialtikns are just
| regularity capture?
| jfengel wrote:
| Aggravatingly, some of it is. The organic food
| regulations are impossible for the small farmers who
| invented the idea. Only mega corps can do it, and their
| definition is not much better (if at all) than industrial
| farms.
|
| It's still way better than Upton Sinclair's time. But it
| would be nice if the FDA and USDA were run by people who
| eat rather than sell food.
| dismalaf wrote:
| To start a restaurant where I live it's $50k in fees and
| mandatory paperwork before you can even get a
| construction permit. Alot of it is, yes.
|
| And none of it prevents bad food handling practices by
| minimum wage staff.
| lucianbr wrote:
| Looks like this one might be while in general the rule does
| not hold. Good regulations exist, and so do bad ones.
| Arguments without nuance often do more harm than good to
| your side.
| staplers wrote:
| 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.
| terminalshort wrote:
| I find your claim that there is a monopoly on computing
| laughable. No other technology has improved in quality or
| dropped in price as much as computers over the last 40
| years. If this what you get from a monopoly, then we need
| more monopolies.
| akersten wrote:
| 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.
| moate wrote:
| >>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.
| akersten wrote:
| I didn't say any of that in my comment nor express an
| opinion about this whole thing writ large. I'm only
| pointing out that it's not weird for legislature to preempt
| a real world use case by way of pointing out similar laws.
| moate wrote:
| I'm going to do this again:
|
| >>>>absence of a correspondingly negative motivating
| event.
|
| What did you mean? Why do you believe there has not been
| a motivating event to ban data centers when those bans
| have happened, which is literally what you said?
| akersten wrote:
| In the context of the discussion a correspondingly
| negative event would have been along the lines of "we
| built a data center and then it exploded, we need to make
| sure that doesn't happen." Not "we're worried about the
| effects the data center might have," which is vis a vis
| to "we're worried about the effects banning ai might
| have." All I'm saying is neither of those last two are
| weird reasons to enact a law.
|
| GP was insisting that "rights" named laws always come
| after some negative event and it is weird that we have
| this "rights" named law without someone being deprived of
| their computation or whatever. I'm disagreeing with the
| premise that that's weird by pointing out laws preempt
| real world events all the time, in either direction
| (restrictive or permissive).
| hparadiz wrote:
| I'm already running an LLM locally. This is just me renting
| space in a data center. Since when did we restrict people's
| ability to do things? For the record my local models run
| off the solar bolted to my roof. Even including the data
| center I'm using 1/10th of the energy we were using on tube
| monitors back in the 90s. This is exhausting. My GPU would
| be demonstrably using more power by playing a videogame
| right now than when I run a local LLM.
| jrmg wrote:
| _Since when did we restrict people 's ability to do
| things?_
|
| This question is not the obvious winner you think it is.
| To me, and I am sure many, it sort of undermines your
| argument.
|
| Even in the most 'free' cultures, society has _always_
| restricted people's individual ability to do things that
| it collectively deems harmful to the whole society.
| hparadiz wrote:
| This is literally why America was founded. Too many
| people stifle innovation. Move to Europe if you want to
| be stuck in the 20th century frankly. That doesn't mean
| we can't take care of folks. But the ludites need to get
| the fuck out of the way. You're all exhausting.
| pocksuppet wrote:
| America was founded because rich people didn't want to
| pay taxes.
| hparadiz wrote:
| If it wasn't for America you'd still be using a shovel
| and hoe instead of writing code for a living.
| calgoo wrote:
| Please, don't be so negative about the rest of the world.
| No one has any idea what would have happened if the US
| did not create their country the way they did. This is
| the same level of under-appreciation of humans that the
| ancient aliens people have when they say its impossible
| for humans to have built the pyramids. Lets be
| constructive instead of just hating on everyone else
| please.
| hparadiz wrote:
| I was born in Europe. I know this for a fact. The
| difference in "can do" culture between old world and new
| world is everything. There's a reason Europe still
| doesn't have a self landing rocket. They aren't even
| trying. It's crabs in a bucket mentality writ large. I
| wish it weren't so. Yet it is.
| pocksuppet wrote:
| It's partially true but it's not as true as doomers would
| like. It's not America: innovation=yes, Europe:
| innovation=no. Most of the American innovation came from
| a small number of very rich people. It has a lot of very
| poor people as a consequence.
| Arainach wrote:
| > Most of the American innovation came from a small
| number of very rich people
|
| Replace "came from" with "was purchased by" or "was
| copied by an entity with the resources to push the
| inventor out of the market" and you're getting a lot
| closer.
| Arainach wrote:
| >Since when did we restrict people's ability to do
| things?
|
| When those things impact other people - such as by
| skyrocketing utility prices, overloading the electrical
| grid, and more.
| hparadiz wrote:
| I thought this was a free market? Or is that not how
| things work anymore?
| Arainach wrote:
| Never has been. A totally free market doesn't work and
| has failed every time it was tried. You want one today,
| go set up shop in Somalia.
| hparadiz wrote:
| I can't respect that opinion. It's full of holes.
| Arainach wrote:
| Holes such as what?
|
| There have always been rules and laws. The US has never
| been a totally free market. Most of the laws and rules we
| have were written in blood by people professing a "free
| market" right to poison our people, rivers, air, and
| more.
| hparadiz wrote:
| America was largely a free market until the 1920s. Since
| then more regulations have actually increased the cost of
| living. The healthcare problem in America has a lot to do
| with increased regulations. For one we have a fixed limit
| on how many doctors can graduate every year. That was put
| in place by the medical lobby in the US. Ever since then
| healthcare costs have increased exponentially. Tale as
| old as time. This happens with every single new rule put
| in place. Rent control does the same thing. Prices just
| go up. This includes NIMBY laws.
| Arainach wrote:
| The US does not limit the number of doctors that can
| graduate. The limit is on the number of residencies
| funded by medicare. If the private sector wanted more
| doctors in order to pay doctors less, they could just
| offer paid residencies themselves. Somehow the free
| market hasn't solved that one. This ignores that doctors'
| salaries aren't a significant cause of the problems and
| insurance companies are the true root of high prices.
|
| Rent control stabilizes prices while more supply can be
| built, because it is in the interests of society for
| people to be able to afford to live, and we can't will
| additional buildings into place overnight. High eviction
| rates destroy communities and have many negative side
| effects.
|
| In the absence of regulation, corporations lie, cheat,
| and steal, and have a massive power imbalance against
| ordinary people. No one has enough time and energy to
| research every option for everything in their daily life,
| and they rely on laws to establish safety measures they
| can rely on.
| hparadiz wrote:
| Oh you're one of those. You actually believe rent control
| works in the face of overwhelming evidence that all is
| does is increase the cost of housing. Fascinating.
| Pointless talking to you.
| pocksuppet wrote:
| What are the holes? There are places today with no
| government - perfect free markets. If you think perfect
| free markets are awesome, you can move there and do
| business there. It's a bit like telling someone who loves
| communism to go to China.
| balamatom wrote:
| An absolute free market would, by definition, permit the
| selling of the service "restrict someone's freedom for
| me".
|
| Not sure if that leaves it a free market. So if we're
| gonna be talking holes in the cheese - seems like you're
| reasoning in terms of a basically self-contradictory
| notion.
|
| But truly, what do you reckon about the 1st point, in
| terms of the interpretation of market freedom which you
| use?
| moate wrote:
| >>when did we restrict people's abilities to do things?
| That's literally what most laws are, saying what you can
| and can't do. This is like, a foundational understanding
| of what government/regulation is.
|
| >>this is just me renting space... Okay, so a "network
| effect" is when things have greater impact due to larger
| usage. So the data center usage that you're talking about
| does not represent the overall impact of the data center.
| Saying "I only pour ONE cup of bleach into the ocean, so
| I don't see why it's so bad to have the bleach factory
| pump all its waste in as well" is a WILD take.
| sumeno wrote:
| > Since when did we restrict people's ability to do
| things?
|
| At least 4000 years ago, but that's just the earliest we
| have evidence for
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_of_Ur-Nammu
| hparadiz wrote:
| I don't think you understand the qualifier. I meant in
| the tradition of liberal free markets that have unlocked
| human potential on the global scale. I'm saying no it's
| actually _good_ that you don 't have to ask the local
| government when you want to do something. If American
| style free markets didn't gain traction we'd still be
| doing subsistence farming.
| tadfisher wrote:
| The thing is, since we recognized that such a tradition
| led to the unfettered destruction of the natural
| environment which we depend upon to survive, we have
| decided that local governments should be responsible for
| preserving said environment by regulating the destructive
| actions performed by the liberal free market. Not doing
| so will even destroy our ability to perform subsistence
| farming in the long run.
| hparadiz wrote:
| So far all I hear is complaining about electricity
| prices. No one actually cares about the "environment".
| They are just mad that the KW/h is up 3 cents.
| baggy_trough wrote:
| > 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.
|
| Why would it be your business, or anyone else's, to stop
| someone from doing this?
| Arainach wrote:
| Because these data centers are at best overstressing
| utility grids and elevating prices for everyone and at
| worse running dirty generators and poisoning entire
| communities, for a start.
| 15155 wrote:
| Oh no, we couldn't possibly generate more power!
| Impossible! We're at our limit!
|
| China has 100 reactors under construction - meanwhile in
| the West, folks like you exist.
| Arainach wrote:
| If the businesses that want data centers want to pay the
| full construction costs for the new power plants, great.
| Otherwise consumers are paying for them in the rates they
| pay to energy companies.
|
| It should not be considered shocking or controversial
| that people already hit hard by corporate greed and other
| effects of late-stage capitalism don't want to pay higher
| utility rates to subsidize the data centers being built
| by megacorporations who want to take away even more of
| their jobs.
| cortesoft wrote:
| Why should we stop there? Let's ban people flying on
| vacations, because why should our resources go towards some
| dork laying out in the sun? Air travel is horribly
| wasteful. Let's ban people racing cars, that is also
| wasteful. We shouldn't be using our resources to drive in
| circles.
|
| How do we pick which activities are worth using resources?
| Which ones are too 'dorky' to allow?
|
| Look, I am all for pricing the externalities into resource
| consumption. Tax carbon production, to make sure energy
| consumption is sustainable, but don't dictate which uses of
| energy are acceptable or 'worth it', because I don't want
| only mainstream things to be allowed.
| gosub100 wrote:
| so the jobs have to be lost _first_ , then we can ban it?
| sroussey wrote:
| Just like when musicians were on strike and the radio
| people decided to play a recording over the air (gasp! a
| record!) rather than live performances.
|
| A nice ban on playing recorded music would have saved those
| jobs.
| gosub100 wrote:
| Bad example. You are agreeing that copyright is owned by
| the people whose work an AI agent is trained on. Sure,
| come take a class of jobs, and then pay them in
| perpetuity to _license_ the exposition of their work. For
| 75 years after the authors death, just like current
| copyright.
| Ukv wrote:
| If the idea was that laws must be motivated by a negative
| occurrence rather than preemptive, then that'd follow yeah
| (if counting job loss as a reason to ban something, which I
| think is questionable). But note akersten is saying that
| it's normal for laws to be preemptive in both cases.
| cortesoft wrote:
| Job loss is a horrible reason to ban something. Think about
| our history if we always did that. We would all be stuck
| working on farms today, because we didn't want to allow
| tractors or other machinery because it would take away
| farming jobs.
|
| Instead of banning tech to save jobs, pass laws that make
| sure tech prices in externalities (tax carbon emissions),
| and find other ways to assist people who lose jobs (UBI,
| good social safety nets, etc).
|
| Don't stifle progress just because it makes us have to work
| less.
| ukuina wrote:
| Car dealerships would like a word.
| cortesoft wrote:
| Another example why these types of laws make things worse
| for people.
| pocksuppet wrote:
| Right - fix the economy instead. Why should increasing
| efficiency cause people to have _less_ resources - that
| makes no sense.
| Joker_vD wrote:
| Because there are people who live off rent (in a broad
| sense of this world), and there are people who live off
| selling their ability to work. Increased efficiency and
| productivity may or may not benefit the second kind of
| people, depending on whether they can sell their labour
| to be used for something else.
| cortesoft wrote:
| So instead of figuring out ways to limit the ability of
| people to live off rent, we want to ban beneficial things
| that people could extract rent from?
|
| This is like saying, "We don't like how landlords extract
| value from housing, so we are banning apartment
| buildings"
| gosub100 wrote:
| Banning AI does increase efficiency. It makes it more
| efficient for a working class family to afford to
| survive. What perverted definition of the word were you
| considering?
| cortesoft wrote:
| How is this different from saying "Banning mechanical
| farm equipment does increase efficiency, it makes it more
| efficient for farm workers to afford to survive"
|
| You are fighting against productivity improvements when
| you should be fighting against people hoarding the
| benefits of productivity improvements.
| gosub100 wrote:
| That doesn't answer my question. My claim is that people
| working _is_ efficient.
| pocksuppet wrote:
| A carpenter using a hand saw instead of a power saw just
| to keep more carpenters employed is not being efficient.
| It's Pareto-better to keep all those carpenters employed,
| earning the same salary for fewer hours.
| TimorousBestie wrote:
| > Job loss is a horrible reason to ban something. Think
| about our history if we always did that.
|
| The US has continually set up protectionist policies to
| preserve a local workforce. Automotive manufacturers, the
| shipbuilding industry, etc.
| tt24 wrote:
| These are bad things
| autoexec wrote:
| > 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
| tt24 wrote:
| God I hate safetyism
| terminalshort wrote:
| What a load of shit. I have relatives in Ashburn VA, the
| data center capital of the world, and none of these
| negative effects are anything but NIMBY bullshit.
| autoexec wrote:
| Yeah, I'm going to believe the many many documented cases
| of these problems in VA alone over your non-example
|
| https://www.businessinsider.com/living-next-to-data-
| centers-...
|
| https://www.businessinsider.com/data-centers-northern-
| virgin...
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/15/opinion/data-centers-
| ai-a...
|
| https://virginiamercury.com/2026/02/19/legislature-
| considers...
|
| https://www.wdbj7.com/2026/02/04/virginia-lawmakers-look-
| add...
|
| https://news.vcu.edu/article/northern-virginia-data-
| center-a...
| terminalshort wrote:
| OK, so datacenters are turning it into an unliveable
| shithole...
|
| > Loudon counts itself among the fastest-growing counties
| in America with a population over 100,000. Homeowners
| have watched the median sales price rise more than 70%
| over the past decade.
|
| Well, there you go, right from one of your ragebait
| journalism articles. People who are bitter and hate their
| lives are always looking for something to blame for it,
| and the most popular thing to blame is the new thing that
| is in the news. And the click whores that some people
| call "journalists" will be right there to meet the
| demand. But it's all bullshit as the massive rise in home
| values in the area reveals the truth.
| Eridrus wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| hermannj314 wrote:
| Preventable medical errors kill 250,000 American every
| year, I can imagine LLMs could be both good and bad for
| that number, but on net, it is hard to say without just
| guessing. But if you ban the application of LLMs to medical
| care, you close that door before even seeing the potential
| on the other side. I think that is absurd.
| jlarocco wrote:
| I don't think that conclusion really follows because I
| don't think the ban works that way.
|
| There's a big difference between ChatGPT writing a
| prescription and a doctor double checking his diagnosis
| using some kind of Claude code for medicine. ChatGPT
| writing prescriptions and giving medical device directly
| to people should absolutely be prohibited for now, but
| the second approach should be encouraged.
| dboreham wrote:
| (2025)
| culi wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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?
| ProllyInfamous wrote:
| 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_...
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| Do you believe that for younger people this question (about
| derivativeness) is clearly settled? If so, how?
| ProllyInfamous wrote:
| I would hypothesize that _younger people are less-inclined
| to feel guilty about using pirate TV services_. I think
| they 're also more invested in the future, and aware of
| dangerous technology's pre-eminence.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| OK, but what about "LLM-generated work is clearly
| derivative of the training material" ?
| selectively wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Yeah, "you can own compute hardware" doesn't really help if
| nobody makes hardware that can be owned.
| Nevermark wrote:
| "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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Do I have to back in age verification to my OS?
| 152334H wrote:
| > Apr 21, 2025
|
| why is this posted now?
| kid64 wrote:
| What an egregiously disingenous piece of legislation. Not
| surprised.
| j2kun wrote:
| The article is full of PR-speak. What is really going on in this
| law?
| elophanto_agent wrote:
| montana: where you can compute freely but the nearest data center
| is 400 miles away and the latency is measured in geological
| epochs
| carlsborg wrote:
| This is why Montana Civil Defense survives when skynet goes
| rogue.
| cat_plus_plus wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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_pika wrote:
| They are so proud to hand over all control to the corporations,
| while pretending this is a consumer protection centered build -
| wild
| arjie wrote:
| 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.
| cortesoft wrote:
| 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.
| tadfisher wrote:
| Also wild when Musk is freebasing methane in Tennessee with
| zero consequences.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| 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-g wrote:
| "Datacenter water usage" is a comment I'd expect to see on
| Reddit--not a VC forum with allegedly intelligent people.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| I live in New Mexico. I do not consider Hacker News to be a
| VC forum. For what it's worth (which is very little), I was
| employee #2 at amzn if I need some sort of credentials to
| get you to respond constructively to my point rather than
| with some hand-wavey ad hominem.
| terminalshort wrote:
| > For what it's worth (which is very little), I was
| employee #2 at amzn
|
| Reminds me of a quote from some otherwise forgettable
| movie I saw: "My father left me with very little, except
| for all his money."
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| By "worth" in this context, I mean "authority to speak in
| a context claimed to be limited to a certain kind of
| person" (a limitation I do not acknowledge exists on HN,
| or anywhere, really).
|
| For the record, my net worth increased by about $1M
| before taxes based on the 1 year of options I got at
| amzn. But not relevant in this context.
| terminalshort wrote:
| 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.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| It's not a fictional universe. It is precisely the waters
| rights system you've mentioned. Capital-rich entity buys
| water senior water rights, extracts water, others find
| their wells descending/drying.
|
| This hasn't happened yet in New Mexico _with a data center_
| because these are new. But it has happened numerous times
| with other capital-rich entities that have bought water
| rights (sometimes, just cities buying rights from adjacent
| rural county land).
|
| A small community near where I live no longer has
| functioning wells because new residential construction
| below them sucked the water out of the aquifer. They tried
| to drill deeper, without much success. County is now having
| to build a water line to the community.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| 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.
| tt24 wrote:
| 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.
| thfuran wrote:
| >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?
| tt24 wrote:
| Correct. I buy food from vendors on the beach in foreign
| countries - it has no documentation. It's a consensual
| transaction I choose to engage in.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| 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.
| tt24 wrote:
| You have the freedom to own a computer.
|
| > Refusing to do so should be criminalized on the same
| level as racism.
|
| Racism isn't criminal? At least not in any country anyone
| wants to live in lol
| jamesgill wrote:
| _" 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
| torginus wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| So drm is now illegal?
| artninja1988 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Is it for citizens or billionaire citizens?
| mdx97 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Positive rights are stupid.
| kevin061 wrote:
| "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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| "Datacenters are people, too!"
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