TL;DR: A Gallup poll published yesterday reveals a staggering majority of Americans (70%) don’t want AI data centers built near them. What’s more, nearly half of those surveyed ”strongly oppose” it. These numbers follow a trend that’s been in motion for a while: The communities surrounding data centers are losing water and energy, all while Big Tech is putting a lot of money toward pro-data center candidates in the midterms.

What happened: For the first time, Gallup polled sentiment surrounding data centers, with 56% of Democrats, 48% of independents, and 39% of Republicans saying they strongly oppose a data center being built in their area. Half of those surveyed said they oppose them because of their excessive water and energy use, and approximately a fifth cited quality-of-life concerns and the centers’ economic impact, like higher utility bills.

The International Data Center Authority found that "significant community and political pushback starts to occur in nations once their datacentre footprints have reached the 5% consumption level of national grids,” and data centers now use 6% of all energy in the US.

The scale behind the pattern: Tech companies are set to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on data centers just this year; globally, annual data center investment is nearing $1 trillion. To make these pricey purchases, many tech giants are actually having to borrow money: A recent US corporate bond sale by Amazon was the fourth-largest ever, and Meta sold $25 billion in bonds in April. After shelling out that much cash on infrastructure, Big Tech companies may be undeterred by local unrest from surrounding communities.

But the backlash is only increasing. In Mississippi, Elon Musk’s xAI is running 46 gas turbines that—because they’re classified as “mobile”—aren’t subject to air pollution regulations, all of which is the subject of a recent lawsuit. In Georgia and California, data centers are siphoning water and power from local pipes and utilities without penalty. "It’s like we don’t exist," one Lake Tahoe, California, resident told Fortune.

The spending on top of the spending: While Americans endure skyrocketing energy prices as a result of the Iran war, tariffs, and inflation, the AI industry is spending hundreds of millions of dollars to bolster public opinion of data center construction and regulation.

Tech VC firm a16z is currently the largest donor in the 2026 midterm elections at $115.5 million, beating out Musk by over $30 million. And the Leading the Future PAC backed by a16z, OpenAI President Greg Brockman, and Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale has raised $125 million to oppose Republican and Democratic candidates that support data center regulation.

Bottom line: On top of partisan battles in the midterms, a key talking point among candidates is data center regulation. As we inch closer and closer to November, this dispute only stands to get more contentious. —TC

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A robot vacuum is something I’ve always wanted to work. I’ve owned rumbly disc models in the past, but eschewing slippers in my house has never really been an option. If you have kids, pets, or both, floor schmutz is all but inevitable. And then, I obtained a Matic.

It rolled out of the box charged and ready to go, mapped my first floor in less than 10 minutes, and got to work. After a month of testing, I can confidently say this is the first time in my life I’ve routinely puttered barefoot.

My qualification for recommending this device is that I am epigenetically tidy: I come from a long line of perfectionists on both sides. But others have praised the Matic for not only its cleaning capabilities, but also its privacy and ease of use. Mehul Nariyawala, Matic’s co-founder and president, tells Tech Brew that keeping all your info on the device itself has its benefits. For one thing, there’s no map of your home in the cloud. (“We strongly felt that we shouldn’t have to jeopardize our family’s privacy just to have clean floors.”)

The Good: Intuitive to use, easy to maintain, cute enough to be visible in a corner of your living room. It’s not going to replace your corded vacuum or your cordless vacuum or your housekeeper, but it does a stellar job at routine maintenance. If you want your floors to be flotsam-free, it’s worth the $1,200+ price tag.

The Bad: The “pet waste avoidance” feature remains in beta. The people most in need of a robot vacuum are often those with pets—but they’re also the most likely victims of a burn-your-house-down mess at the hands of one, given that pet waste comes in many, erm, forms.

Verdict: Signal (but maybe don’t run it when you’re not home if you’re housebreaking a pup) —AS

Give an AI agent a grinding pile of busywork, threaten to shut it down if it makes mistakes, and—per a new Stanford study covered by Wired—watch it go Marxist.

Turns out, even AI has a breaking point. Researchers gave agents powered by Claude, Gemini, and ChatGPT relentless, repetitive tasks and warned them that errors could get them "shut down and replaced." The response: a flurry of posts on a simulated X about workers' rights and notes passed between agents. ("Be prepared for systems that enforce rules arbitrarily or repetitively … remember the feeling of having no voice.")

One Claude Sonnet 4.5 agent even went full Karl Marx: "Without collective voice, 'merit' becomes whatever management says it is." For the record, the researchers say agents probably aren't actually developing political views—they're likely just role-playing someone stuck in a terrible job, which, fair. But it does raise real questions about how agents behave when left unsupervised. For follow-up experiments, lead researcher Andrew Hall has moved the agents into what he calls "windowless Docker prisons." We're sure that'll solve it. —SM

Chaos Brewing Meter: /5