Twitter/X

Chase Brignac (tweeted 2026-04-07) claims “It’s easy to profit off AI doomerism,”…

2026-04-07 · 19:20 UTC ·@chasebrignac ·0 min read

Brief

Chase Brignac argues that AI doomerism is profitable because audiences prefer fear, making positive, pragmatic tech stories commercially unattractive; he suggests mainstream media and Hollywood capitalize on that. A reply by Kane singles out Karen Hao’s Empire of AI (NYT bestseller), accusing it of a 100,000% overestimate of data-center water use and minimal accountability.

Why it matters

Chase Brignac (tweeted 2026-04-07) claims “It’s easy to profit off AI doomerism,” arguing fear-driven narratives sell while realistic portrayals of technology’s broad benefits are commercially unprofitable — he gives a hypothetical that a Hollywood Megaman film about humanoids improving living conditions wouldn’t sell.

Key details

  • Kane replies naming Karen Hao and her book Empire of AI (a New York Times bestseller), alleging it overestimated data-center water use by 100,000%, sparked what he calls a ‘data center water psychosis,’ and was reportedly shrugged off with an “oopsies” while incorrect copies remained in circulation.
Source evidence

title: @chasebrignac: It’s easy to profit off AI doomerism. People love to be scared. Being realistic about how we all ben...
author: @chasebrignac
contenttype: tweet
publication: Twitter/X
published: 2026-04-07T19:20:45+00:00
sourceurl: https://x.com/chasebrignac/status/2041597063251841520

word_count: 90

It’s easy to profit off AI doomerism. People love to be scared. Being realistic about how we all benefit from technology is hard because that’s unprofitable. If the Hollywood movie for Megaman was about humanoids making improvements in living conditions tickets wouldn’t sell.

Kane 謝凱堯 (@kane)

The source of the data center water psychosis is @_KarenHao, whose book Empire of AI was a NYT best seller but overestimated water use by 100,000% (lol).

The response was just “oopsies” and all the incorrect books were kept in circulation 🤷🏻‍♂️

— https://nitter.net/kane/status/2041542201285742857#m