If they genuinely believe that, then they are literally a conspiracy to destroy the world. If their current actions are the outcome of genuine belief to what they say, then they are indeed massive "midwits" and a literal cult conspiracy. Due to the amounts of money
they siphoned, that would make them dangerous cult regardless of whether their ai predictions are correct.
Calling them scammers is literally giving them benefit of the doubt and trying to avoid conspiratorial thinking. You frame the belief that "these are normal people with normal motivation" to be paranoid conspiratorial thinking. Meanwhile, you claim they are literal conspiracy and cult and that is somehow less paranoid.
Now, dangerous cults and scammers are severely overlapping categories. Most if not all cults scam people. They lie to
get more powerful whenever it suits them. They have true believers (like your friends) fully willing to cause any amount of harm for the visionary in the center. These people may have started as a well meaning do-gooders, but they usually just end up being co-conspirators in crimes.