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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.
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.
Law is either rigorous or it's not. When I'm told that the law is against me but gosh darn it the law is the law, I grow resentful of the "discretion" reserved for some but not others.
If you get an egregious judge you can appeal it, where it is reviewed by multiple judges at different levels. The Supreme Court only hears a small amount of cases and when they do they almost always focus on a very narrow part of the law.
Society is just a collection of humans and we have to keep the systems practical and pragmatic. Trying to be rigid and fool proof is a fools errand.
I'm not a lawyer so I could well be completely off base here. But if my perception is correct, I would much rather they admit that it's fundamentally up to someone's gut feeling. That's more honest than telling me that a bit of reasoning is airtight when it's not.
At some point someone needs to weigh the facts, and they are given great discretion to do so. It is generally a good thing, because we have multiple layers of appeal to prevent obviously horrible outcomes.
So this legislation, like all legislation, provides guidance for the good faith judge to help weigh the facts. There is no guidance that will prevent a bad faith judge from ruling badly: You do not need a clause about public safety to get the ruling you want, but there is an argument that your ruling may perhaps be less scrutinized.
There’s a reason an attorney’s answer is always “it depends” :) No legislation is truly airtight from abuse.
Here's the thing: this is not supposed to be a thing. Not supposed to be how things work at all, but it kind of does now.
So the trust implicit in the broad language of our laws gives - has been giving - a massive advantage to bad faith actors who obtain power.
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.
There was an entire coalition of “Blue Dog Democrats” that came from red states as recently as 30 years ago.
Or did you really forget that even in Trumps first term that Republicans like McCain voted against Trump snd 10 voted to impeach him?
Perhaps it's you who haven't been paying attention? I find older people have a lot of unfounded faith in these failing institutions, but if you try to keep up you'll see this isn't the same America you grew up in.
If an unchecked tyrant exists, do they really need the paper-thin facade provided by manhandling the English language to pretend that some law supports their actions?
Sure, but legislators should generally avoid explicitly building the on-ramp to such behavior.
....what does this say about DRM enforcement?
Somewhat related: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.en.html , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Right_to_Read
I also wonder what the impact of the law is on TPM chips on computers (restricting your ability to boot whatever OS you want), the locked-down iOS mobile app store, etc.
I have seen clients go for many years without cellphones because a judge cassually attached a "no computer" protective order. It is hard enough finding work as a convict or person under investigation, but 10x harder for those without cellphones and email.
Many a young law student has pontificated that as non-citizens, visiting tourists have no rights. There is no more loaded a word in US politics, and none more malleable under the law, as "citizen". It means something different in every context.
montroser•2h ago
Maybe I'm naive, and I am definitely uncertain about how all this AI craziness is going to break -- whether empowering everyone or advancing ultra corporate dystopia. But do we think our government is gearing up to take our laptops away?
lmeyerov•2h ago
The California laws the article references make OSS AI model makers liable for whatever developers & users do. That chills the enthusiasm for someone like Facebook or a university to release a better llama. So I'm curious if this law removes that liability..
ranger_danger•2h ago
theoldgreybeard•2h ago
So they didn't even think things like the First and Second Amendment were even necessary.
Fastfoward 250 years and now maybe the idea of a "right of the people to own and self host their own software, shall not be infringed" doesn't sound like such a bad idea.
montroser•2h ago
salawat•2h ago
FpUser•1h ago
Count me in.
pessimizer•1h ago
That's a perspective, but it seems to me that the Federalists didn't believe that government should be limited at all. The Constitution is a genie granting three wishes, and explaining beforehand that one of your wishes can be to wish for three more wishes.
Personally, it's always seemed obvious that the Federalists and their children have been the worst intellectual current in US government. They never had popular support at any time, and relied on the manipulation of power and position to accomplish personal goals (which is really their only ideology.) It began with a betrayal of the French Revolution, setting the US on a dirty path (and leaving the Revolution to be taken over by the insane.) The Bill of Rights is the only worthwhile part of the US Constitution; the rest of it is a bunch of slop meant to placate and protect local warlords and slaveholders. The Bill of Rights is the only part that acknowledges that individual people exist other than the preamble.
The Anti-Federalists were always right.
I agree with you that what we should be working on is specifying, codifying and expanding the Bill of Rights, rather than the courts continually trying to come up with new ways to subvert it. New ways that are never codified firmly, that always exist as vibes and penumbras. Rights shouldn't have anything to do with what a judge knows when he sees. If we want to abridge or expand the Bill of Rights, a new amendment should be written and passed; the Supreme Court is overloaded because 1) Congress has ceased to function and 2) the Senate is still an assembly of local warlords.
giantg2•15m ago
... the 10th amendment is largely ignored.
lostmsu•2h ago
bongodongobob•1h ago
bhauer•42m ago
US Executive Orders 14110 and 14141 did create fairly onerous regulatory regimes that could have constrained the dynamism of the marketplace. However, my understanding is that both have been rescinded, so they do not currently post a real threat.
TheRealPomax•4m ago
It's not about losing access to laptops, it's about guaranteeing the right to even have access to the same tools that folks like us think everyone already has access to.