[dynm]

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

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Section 3. Right to compute

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

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

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

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

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

[yason]

If that's the gist of it, then:

> Government actions that restrict the ability to privately...

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

[a_humean]

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

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

[BrenBarn]

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

[AnthonyMouse]

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

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

Although this language seems particularly inelegant:

> computational resources for lawful purposes

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

[sophrosyne42]

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

[gameman144]

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

[samdoesnothing]

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

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

[txrx0000]

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

[novok]

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

[immibis]

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

[singron]

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

[stephenlf]

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

[jjk166]

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

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

[throwaway384638]

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

[halfcat]

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

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

[marcosdumay]

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

[BirAdam]

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

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

[noir_lord]

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

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

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

[singron]

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

[mpalmer]

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

[ralusek]

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

[ethin]

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

[captainkrtek]

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

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

[SilverElfin]

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

[simplulo]

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

[dvntsemicolon]

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

[BriggyDwiggs42]

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

[soupy-soup]

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

[dweinus]

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

[andai]

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

[einpoklum]

So, the bill:

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

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

* Legitimizes the control of infrastructure by artificial intelligence systems.

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

Wonderful...

[wseqyrku]

>revert to human control within a reasonable amount of time.

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

[xorcist]

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

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

[qnleigh]

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

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

[vrighter]

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

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

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

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

[votepaunchy]

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

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

[biztos]

> revert to human control within a reasonable amount of time

“You have 15 seconds to comply.”