TL;DR

Andy Burnham used his first big international speech, at the UN General Assembly in New York, to announce a National Centre for Information Defence aimed at AI-driven disinformation from hostile states, Russia above all. He also committed the UK to working towards agreed global principles for safe AI development. Donald Trump had used the same platform earlier to reject “any attempt to construct a globalist scheme” for controlling AI.

Disinformation first

Burnham said the Kremlin spends “around £1.3bn each year on manipulating information”, and that its campaigns had faked the branding of 28 UK bodies, including the BBC and several universities. AI, he warned, “will multiply the threat”. The new centre will pool expertise from intelligence agencies, government, police and social media firms to spot and disrupt such operations. A Russian representative was in the room; Moscow did not respond immediately.

The AI pitch

Describing frontier AI as a source of both growth and risk, Burnham cast Britain as an “honest broker”, close to both Washington and Brussels, and pointed to the AI Security Institute as proof of UK capability. He promised AI would be central to next year’s G20 presidency, with leaders meeting in Manchester, and said a UK effort on standards would draw in other initiatives, including Norway’s proposal this week.

That Norwegian-backed text is the declaration on keeping AI under human control, which has more than 20 signatories and asks for mandatory testing of frontier models before release. The UK has still not signed. Former minister Darren Jones urged Burnham to sign and to broker a deal with the US on putting it into practice.

Looking forward

The speech followed a day of defence AI announcements with the US, yet Trump told the same assembly “we’re going to encourage it, not rein it in”. That is the gap Burnham’s broker role has to close. At home, AISI testing is still voluntary, and Downing Street says officials have told AI firms it expects “full and total visibility of model developments”, with legislation not ruled out. Whether the UK signs the declaration before its G20 year begins will show how far the honest-broker line goes in practice.