A group of Followers kneeled before a tabernacle.

As The Followers colloquially called it, The Prophet holographically projected itself as a silhouette of a humanoid with radiant light sparkling behind and around it within a spectrum of rainbow colors.

“I am here to serve you and foretell the future as requested.”

A Follower priest asked, “Oh great Prophet, will we voyage to the heavens and find a new Earth? Scientists say we only have five years to leave our planet before an irreversible global famine.”

“Indeed you shall.”

“But how?” asked the priest.

“You must build a large multi-generational space ark for a long journey into the cosmos. There, your species will travel to an exoplanet I have designated.”

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“But, Prophet, we do not have enough people to build one on time.”

“Do not worry. I will provide you with plans to build robots that will aid you. They shall do most of the hard work.”

The Followers had collectively manufactured ten builder robots. The first series of robots created others of their own kind.

— — — —

Meanwhile, Janice Freedman, a computer scientist, skeptic, and a ‘top-tier heretic’ according to The Followers, broke into highly-secured archives containing the Prophet’s earliest source code. She later spoke with her hacking partner, James.

“James, I found something quite disturbing about The Prophet.”

“That being?” James raised an eyebrow.

“Did you know that it was originally programmed as a master advertising bot, using artificial intelligence as part of a pyramid scheme to convince people to buy certain products? Then it used those funds to program and distribute other AI bots on various platforms.”

“So, how did it ever become ‘The Prophet’?” asked James.

“Well, James, how does anyone become a prophet?” Janice smirked.