RAIN — Week of July 27, 2026

Ask Amy

Question: "Why would I use AI if it lies to me?" — Louis, Bayfield

"Lies to me" assumes you'd believe it, and I don't think you would. You sound like the guy who reads the whole estimate before the roofer gets on the ladder.

So keep doing that. It's a fast assistant that's wrong sometimes, not scripture. The people who get burned are the ones who skip the checking.

My guess is you're asking it the things you used to type into a search bar. How do I fix this. Is this true. Difference is, a search bar gave you ten links and let you sort them yourself. This hands back one clean paragraph with the seams sanded off, and it sounds exactly as confident when it's wrong as when it's right. Hang onto that anytime your health, your money, or your signature is involved.

You can also just skip it. The tools are getting better at citing sources and catching their own mistakes, but better and trustworthy aren't the same word.

Here's the test: if the answer's wrong, how fast will you find out? Right away and it costs you nothing, let it take a swing. Not until it's already cost you, don't.

What were you about to ask it, Louis?

Stories of the Week

Five things to know as data centers spread across rural America

Two-thirds of the more than 1,500 data centers planned nationally are slated for rural communities, even though 87% of existing facilities sit in urban areas. Google's hyperscale campus in Pryor, Oklahoma uses roughly 1.1 billion gallons of water a year, most of it lost to evaporative cooling.

Rural residents report the highest concern of any group, ranking electricity costs first, then farmland conversion, then water. Rezoning votes from agricultural to industrial remain the main lever local boards hold, since Oklahoma data centers buying municipal water need no state water permit.

Rural NY School District Will Be One of First to Bring Humanoid Robot Into Classroom

Salamanca City Central School District, located on the Seneca Nation reservation in Cattaraugus County, will place a Realbotix humanoid robot and an AI avatar assistant in high school AI and robotics classes this fall under a $57,590 contract. The system runs closed and offline, trained on district curriculum.

The district serves about 1,300 students, 32% American Indian or Alaska Native and 79% economically disadvantaged, and some parents have objected publicly. Superintendent Mark Beehler will evaluate the pilot on qualitative student and teacher feedback, making Salamanca the test case other rural districts will cite.

Critics call for more details about Stratos data center in Utah's west desert

Utah's Military Installation Development Authority has paused the Stratos data center in Box Elder County's Hansel Valley amid a citizen referendum effort and a lawsuit. Backers of the Kevin O'Leary project claim 2,000 permanent jobs, well above the roughly 50 a typical data center provides, and seek water rights exceeding 13,000 acre-feet.

Utah now requires large data centers to report water use, but HB76 publishes only aggregate figures and allows confidentiality claims. Rural counties negotiating similar deals should demand project-level water and heat data in writing before any rezoning or approval vote.

[Grant] AI3 Action Institute - Artificial Intelligence for American Indians

The Administration for Children and Families' Administration for Native Americans has opened the AI3 Action Institute grant, opportunity number HHS-2026-ACF-ANA-NAI-0035, to build AI capacity in American Indian communities. Applications are due August 27, 2026.

Federal dollars aimed specifically at tribal AI training and institution-building are rare, and the window is under a month. Tribal colleges, tribal governments, and Native-serving nonprofits should pull the full notice on Grants.gov now rather than after the summer.

Rural Founders Don't Need Permission to Build With AI. They Need a Safe Space to Tinker

The Center on Rural Innovation ran AI Forward Studio, a 12-week program with 22 rural founders, funded by the Nasdaq Foundation and taught with Codefi's VibeLabs platform and Prompt to Product curriculum. One participant built a working home-configurator prototype within days and won a Cohere Labs Catalyst Grant mid-program.

The finding for funders is that rural founders do not need convincing about AI, they need low-cost space to experiment. Mixed cohorts of technical and non-technical founders worked, and heavy hands-on support in the first weeks mattered most.

Top House Democrat Attacks Musk over Gas-Powered Data Centers in Tennessee, Mississippi

Rep. Frank Pallone is pressing Elon Musk over gas turbines powering xAI data centers in Tennessee and Mississippi, saying the rollout into vulnerable communities without adequate oversight creates a major health risk. xAI previously installed nearly 20 turbines in Memphis without first obtaining air permits.

Behind-the-meter gas generation is how AI compute gets online fast, and it lands hardest in places with limited local air monitoring and few permitting staff. Communities negotiating data center deals should ask what generation is coming with the servers, and under which permit.

Senate Panel Hears Permitting Reform, Fiber Critical to Supporting AI Growth

Telecom witnesses told the Senate Subcommittee on Telecommunications and Media on July 30 that AI use across businesses and households is reshaping internet traffic in ways existing networks were not built to carry. They called for faster permitting approvals for fiber deployment and network modernization.

Permitting reform written for AI traffic growth will also govern the rights-of-way and pole attachments that rural fiber builds depend on. Rural broadband offices and co-ops should watch the resulting legislative text closely, since the details decide whether last-mile projects benefit or get crowded out.