The United Kingdom has pledged to combat disinformation at home and abroad while pushing for global principles to guide safe artificial intelligence development.
At UN headquarters in New York, Prime Minister Andy Burnham said the UK and its allies had faced an industrial-scale assault by hostile actors on the information environment in recent years.
He accused Russian agencies of spreading disinformation through bots, fake websites and falsified news articles, amplifying far-right narratives and interfering in the UK’s 2019 general election.
He said the Kremlin spends roughly £1.3 billion annually on information manipulation, and that British companies and institutions have also suffered cyber-attacks, warning that AI would multiply the threat.
To counter this, Burnham announced a new National Centre for Information Defence to detect, attribute and disrupt information attacks while defending the UK’s democracy.
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He said the country would share its expertise with other nations, citing support already given to Moldova in protecting its elections from alleged Russian interference, with more European nations now facing similar challenges.
On AI, Burnham called frontier technology one of the most significant challenges and opportunities of the era, announcing a new AI defence partnership with the United States to protect critical national infrastructure.
He stressed that major decisions on AI must rest with elected governments, not be left to chance, and said the UK would push for a single set of global principles ensuring transparency and safe development, an initiative he said would anchor the UK’s G20 Presidency in 2027.
Burnham’s address also touched on global security, climate change, the war in Ukraine and the conflict in the Middle East.
NAN
