What if the most transformative technology in human history arrives faster than anyone is prepared for, and the church is caught flat-footed? Many leading AI researchers now believe artificial general intelligence (AGI) could be just five to ten years away. That's not distant science fiction; it's within the span of a single church strategic plan.
Dr. Richard Susskind is one of the world's foremost thinkers on AI, law and society. He wrote his PhD on AI and law in the mid-1980s and has spent four decades studying the social, legal and ethical impact of technology. A bestselling author and adviser to governments and global institutions, he describes himself as "half a lawyer and half a technologist." He's neither a doomsayer nor a hype merchant, but a rigorous thinker who believes we have roughly a decade to get this right.
We sat down with Richard at Missional AI London 2025, after his session asking a single question: What if AGI?
Experts' timelines for human-level AI have collapsed from decades to years, and even systems that fall short of it could reshape civilization.
AGI refers to machines performing at a human level across the full range of our cognitive tasks, as "clever" and capable as we are. Before ChatGPT launched, this seemed improbable even to many in AI. In 2022, experts were predicting 20 to 40 years. Today, Richard says, most people building AI at the leading edge think it's five to ten years away. "I find this simply staggering."
He believes that timeline is plausible, and he doesn't think governments or humanity more broadly are anywhere near ready. In his book, he also writes about "near-AGI": systems don't need to match us in everything to have a mammoth effect on humanity. The results, he expects, will be in many ways superb, and in many ways damaging and destructive.
Richard is less predicting AGI than urging us to plan for it, starting with deciding which activities should always remain human.
Because the people who understand these systems best take AGI so seriously, Richard believes the rest of us should too. That means asking hard questions now. If a system could match our performance, where would we simply not want it involved? Which activities are intrinsically human, valuable not only for their outcomes but for how we do them? We need to start delineating what we're happy to delegate to machines and what we want to preserve for people.
Regulation matters too, but most current debate about AI ethics and law focuses on today's generative AI, not on AGI. Richard thinks we still have time. Over the next two or three years, most AI work will make what humans already do more efficient. But as we move into the 2030s, he expects an era of transformation for which "revolution is not stating it strongly enough." Now is the time to think through the policy, ethical, legal, social, economic and even cosmic significance of that shift.
It's naive to assume we can control systems more capable than we are, which is why Richard sees global cooperation as essential.
Could we control technology that equals or exceeds human intelligence? This is the control problem, and views are divided. But Richard believes that if we develop superintelligence, systems unfathomably more capable than us, it would be naive to assume we can control them. People suggest simply turning them off, but such systems will have their own fail-safes and may behave in ways we can't fathom. That's what he finds deeply disconcerting.
The benefits could be enormous, from global health and education to justice and climate. But he believes we have about a decade to make sure these systems stay within our control.
The biggest obstacle is that countries see things differently. Even if one nation agreed on moral, ethical and legal limits, others may not, and something of an AI arms race is underway. Richard sees the challenge as one of international diplomacy, like negotiating nuclear test-ban treaties: nations must recognize a shared existential threat, set global standards and bind themselves to them under international law. Non-state actors remain a concern as AI becomes cheaper, but a common view among leading nations would be a good start. Valuable work is happening, he says, but not with the urgency he'd like.
Get hands-on with AI, engage your elected representatives, and join a broad public conversation about the question of our age.
This all feels elusive for most people, Richard admits, even for him as a specialist. His first recommendation is to immerse yourself in the technology as a user. We owe it to ourselves, our families and, he suspects, our faiths. Everyone has strong opinions about AI, but they're often not based on real experience. Whenever he tells people his new book is about AI, they immediately tell him what they think about AI.
Second, in democratic countries, engage with your politicians. Today's debates, such as copyright for authors and musicians, matter, but in the grand scheme they're a sideshow. Richard is calling for a major public debate around one question: What if AGI? He believes it should be discussed in schools and universities, businesses, governments, charities and around the dinner table.
As he puts it: "Saving humanity with and from AI is the defining challenge of our age. There is good and there is bad here. We just need to get the balance right."
Richard's session at Missional AI London 2025 posed the question at the heart of this conversation: What if AGI? You can watch it in the Missional AI Video Library under London 2025, or in the London 2025 playlist on YouTube.
Listen to the full episode with Dr. Richard Susskind on the Missional AI Podcast, and subscribe so you don't miss future conversations.
The Missional AI 2026 Global Summit takes place April 7–9, 2026, in Santa Clara, California, in the heart of Silicon Valley. It will be the largest gathering of its kind, bringing together technologists and faith leaders working in AI, and we expect it to sell out. Early-bird pricing is available now at missional.ai.
This episode was made possible in partnership with Gloo, the technology platform connecting the faith ecosystem.