UK's Burnham, Canada's Carney discuss AI risks, defence cooperation

The UK and Canada have held their first bilateral meeting, and the agenda included AI risks — a subject on which neither country has actually legislated, which does save a great deal of drafting time. Canada's Artificial Intelligence and Data Act lapsed when parliament was prorogued in January 2025, which is parliamentary procedure for 'the bill died because everyone went home.' The UK has been running a pro-innovation, sector-led approach since its policy paper in March 2023, and the approach has been running ever since, unbothered by outcomes. So two governments with no functioning AI statute have convened to discuss the risks posed by AI. It is two bald men, one comb.

The timing is a small masterpiece. Britain's sector-led arrangement means the sector leads, and the sector's settled preference is that nobody leads at all — a governance model with the enormous advantage of being invisible to voters, regulators and anyone with a subpoena. So Burnham and Carney met, discussed AI risks, and produced a photograph, which in fairness is more than the AIDA managed. The risks, at minimum, were discussed.

The substantive item is 'defence cooperation,' which is where AI stops being a values seminar and becomes procurement. Defence is the one AI domain where nobody proposes a three-year consultation, because the counterparty is not consulting. Meanwhile the capability calendar is set in labs, and the legislative calendar in London and Ottawa is set by whether anyone fancies a recess — a mismatch that the first bilateral meeting did not so much address as illustrate. Still, a milestone: two countries with no dedicated AI law have now agreed to keep discussing AI. The bill lapsed. The conversation continues. One of those is cheaper.