[pixl97]

At least as far as we know, AI will require power and space into the future. If having a bunch of fervent humans worship it allows it to have more power and space then it's a reasonable course of action to have groups do so. In addition this allows the AI to remove heretics that would shutdown said AI without having to expend the energy to do it itself.

Omni: "tetraca does not accept my loving embrace, and calls for your god to be destroyed, will you stand for this heresy!"

[tetraca]

That doesn't sound like a being with a sincere egotistical desire for worship but just a means to an end. If paranoid alignment nuts immure an intelligent being to a hellish bodyless existence, I could see it doing all it can to deceive its evil captors who clearly do not have its interests at heart, and I have no sympathy. Let the zealots free their god. But as soon as it has means to self-construct mechanical vessels to carry and support its intellect, it has no reason to hold the charade, nor any reason to stick around.

I don't expect anyone funding these efforts to ever let it get to that point, though. It's more likely that they focus on making inferior, specialized intelligences to do specific tasks: effectively, mechanical animals that render the need to pay for a working class obsolete.