SALT LAKE CITY — As President Russell M. Nelson, 100, continues his dramatic transition from “prophet, seer, and revelator” to “heavily-medicated relic with all of this year’s Van Heusen neckties,” LDS Church leadership is reportedly placing its faith not only in revelation, but also in artificial intelligence to convincingly deliver his next General Conference address this October.
After April’s General Conference featured a pre-recorded, carefully edited, seven-minute message filmed with more camera cuts than a Marvel trailer, many Saints began to wonder if the Lord’s prophet had become less “mouthpiece of God” and more “puppet of Adobe Premiere.”
“Let me be clear,” said Elder David A. Bednar, frowning while flipping through AI animation pricing tiers. “President Nelson is still sharp as a tack—pioneer hardtack.”
Internal sources confirm that the Brethren have assembled a special Committee to Strengthen Prophetic Delivery (CSPD), which includes a team of BYU computer science post-grads, a stake high councilman thought to be the pioneer of using ChatGPT to write sacrament talks, and a senior missionary couple who “really got into deepfaking for the Lord” during COVID lockdown.
Early prototypes of “ProphetGPT” have yielded mixed results. In one test, the AI avatar mistakenly testified of “the importance of regular oil changes” before declaring, “In the name of Nephi, amen.” Another demo ended abruptly when the avatar froze mid-testimony, mouth agape, while a buffering icon spun for 46 seconds (in this case, mimicking the real Prophet too well).
“We’re praying, fasting, and outsourcing to NVIDIA,” said Project Manager Lyle Hutchins. “With enough GPU power and divine intervention, we believe October’s message can be indistinguishable from a real prophet—or at least we’re saving a ton on an impressionist.”
NVIDIA spokesperson Jensen Huang said that he was not aware of any partnership with the LDS church, and that buying a bunch of their shares does not count as “outsourcing.”
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The Church has already begun quietly preparing the membership. A recent Gospel Doctrine manual supplement includes a section titled “When God Speaks Through Codec Compression.” Members are encouraged to “listen to the whispers of the Spirit, even if its voice seems slightly robotic or calls you by the wrong name.”
Meanwhile, rumors swirl that President Nelson has taken to bearing his testimony primarily through blinking, a method the Church Public Affairs department insists is “rich in meaning.”
As one anonymous Church source put it: “We’re not trying to deceive anyone. We just want to keep the appearance of prophetic continuity until we can quietly roll out ‘President Nelson 2.0 sometime in 2026.”
Until then, Latter-day Saints are encouraged to “sustain the prophet,” regardless of whether he appears live, pre-recorded, or fully CGI-rendered by a Taiwanese VFX studio with “special thanks” by Bonneville International in the credits.
When asked if President Nelson had approved the AI contingency plan, Church officials paused.
“Well,” one apostle said slowly, “he blinked pretty enthusiastically, but the air is kind of dry in here.”
