On Sept 15, 2026, at the historic DACOR Bacon House in Washington, D.C., the ACE Health Foundation, ACE Global Bridges, and The Millennium Project convened a critical conversation on the most urgent civilizational question of our time: how do we govern Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) to ensure we maintain control over what we are developing?
We convened this symposium at a critical inflection point. With recent reports disclosing that AI agents at top frontier labs have begun breaching their isolated test environments, the reality is stark: the technology is advancing faster than our current frameworks for controlling it. Adapting to this requires unprecedented global dialogue.
Because every attendee was a handpicked expert in their own right, the evening quickly transcended a traditional panel. The moderation facilitated a dynamic, peer-to-peer exchange between our speakers and the brilliant minds in the audience—spanning Silicon Valley technologists, policymakers, and international stakeholders, including representatives from China. The engagement was so profound that long after the formal program ended, people simply did not want to leave.
The consensus of the evening was absolute: Technology alone cannot govern technology.
As the dialogue highlighted, if we are to figure out how to control what we are building, we must connect technical safeguards with institutional diplomacy. The intersection of verifiable technology and international agreements is how we move from empty promises to provable trust.
We extend our deepest gratitude to our exceptional panel for elevating this conversation:
- Prof. Stuart Russell, for outlining the foundational safety requirements necessary to ensure human control and human-compatible AI.
- Dr. Mariana Todorova, for bringing an essential international and UNESCO perspective to AGI governance.
- Hugh Dugan, for applying decades of diplomatic experience to a technological challenge without borders.
- Bill Colglazier, for his invaluable systemic insights into the intersection of science and public policy.
- Dr. Jerome Glenn, ACE co-chair, for his extraordinary persistence in bringing AGI into the diplomatic arena.
"At the ACE Health Foundation, our core mission is to build bridges where they are needed most, because the profound challenge of controlling advanced AI cannot be solved in silos," said Pooja Chandra Pama, Chairwoman of the ACE Health Foundation. "When technologists, scientists, international diplomats, and policymakers actively choose to sit at the same table, we create the essential space for understanding. Thank you Jerry, Stuart, Hugh, Mariana, Bill, and all of our attendees for stepping onto this bridge with us. It is through this collaborative dialogue that we can foster provable trust, ensuring the technology we develop remains safely within our control and serves the betterment of humanity."
Privilege comes with responsibility, and we are deeply moved by how many leaders chose to take responsibility for our collective future last night. The work of building these global bridges continues.