‘Right-to-Compute’ Laws May Be Coming to Your State This Year

Right-to-compute has been under discussion for some time, said Adam Thierer, senior fellow at the R Street Institute, a Washington, DC-based market-oriented think tank.

“I have been advocating for 34 years the idea of ‘freedom to innovate’ and ‘right to compute’ in a broad sense,” he said, adding he wasn’t involved in writing the original bill. “This is a targeted effort to apply to algorithmic and computational systems…”

Chances are that more states will propose right-to-compute bills this year. That’s because the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which creates model legislation for states, created model legislation for right-to-compute bills that is essentially identical to the Montana legislation.

Because some states are accustomed to looking to ALEC to pick up new legislation easily, they may pick up the right-to-compute bill as well. “I would hope it would encourage other states to run with it to counter the fear-based narratives” with something that is more pro-innovation and embraces opportunities, Thierer said.