Helen Toner

Helen Toner has made external scrutiny a practical question of evidence: what governments must know about powerful systems, what companies should disclose and how uncertainty should be carried into policy. Her recent work joins institutional leadership, congressional testimony and research on automated AI development.

At a time when much of the most consequential evidence about frontier AI remains inside the companies building it, Helen Toner has placed external scrutiny at the centre of her public work. As Interim Executive Director of Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology, she leads a research institution examining the security implications of AI, advanced computing and biotechnology. In May 2025, Toner told a congressional subcommittee that protecting frontier developers’ trade secrets and enabling government oversight need not be opposing goals; she recommended stronger security and greater visibility into systems with strategic significance. In September, she assumed leadership of CSET after previously directing strategy and a multimillion-dollar technical grantmaking programme. A January 2026 report she co-authored distilled a workshop on AI-assisted AI research, identifying deep disagreement over possible acceleration while calling for better indicators and less dependence on patchy voluntary company disclosures. Her April 2026 Senate testimony applied the same discipline to model distillation: she recognised genuine security concerns while warning against treating every competitive advance as theft. Toner’s contribution is a method of governance grounded in evidence, institutional independence and explicit uncertainty.