In a series of calls with reporters on Monday morning, incoming Trump administration officials outlined dozens of executive orders the president-elect planned to take when he officially takes office, including 10 focused on what one official described as "common sense immigration policy". Officials said that Trump plans to end birthright citizenship, meaning that the children of undocumented migrants living in the US will no longer automatically be considered US citizens. Birthright citizenship, however, is enshrined in the US constitution and would require a two-thirds vote in both chambers of Congress to change. The official provided no further detail on how Trump plans to accomplish this. As part of the national emergency designation at the border, Trump will also direct the Department of Defense to "seal the border" and surge additional resources and personnel, including counter-drone capabilities.

Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt on Sunday urged lawmakers to ramp up funding for research and development in the artificial intelligence space in order to prevent China from becoming the biggest player in the global AI market–a development Schmidt warned would spark national security and privacy concerns that could ultimately constitute a national emergency. Speaking to CNN's Fareed Zakaria on Sunday, 65-year-old Schmidt said the United States may lose its lead in AI "fairly quickly" over the next decade given the Chinese government's progress on a 2017 plan to lead the global market for AI by 2030. A former Google CEO and current chair of the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence, Schmidt notes the U.S. is also falling behind China in additive, or 3D, manufacturing and robotics, as well as facial recognition technology and supercomputers–both of which pose risks on the national security front. "The government is not today prepared for this new technology," Schmidt said Sunday, noting that the use of AI to produce and spread harmful information poses a "threat to democracy" and could ultimately be used as a weapon of war. In order for the U.S. to be competitive, Schmidt suggests increasing the nation's budget for research and development in AI from $1.5 billion this year to $2 billion in 2022, and then doubling it each year until it hits $32 billion in 2026.

Global artificial intelligence capability is expanding fast, as is the threat of emergent infectious diseases. However, AI is not always used for the benefit of the people. Track-and-trace apps have produced serious concerns and implications for democracy and transparency during national emergencies, and their rolling out has often failed to protect those most at risk of contracting COVID-19. Stephen Roberts, Audrey Prost, and Lele Rangaka find a significant variance in how different populations and communities either benefit from, or are oppressed and disenfranchised by, AI operations aimed at containing COVID-19. The authors argue that for AI to address these inequalities, it must focus on three factors outside of technology: people, processes, and politics.

The US government averted another shutdown when Donald Trump instead opted to declare a national emergency to fund his border wall dreams--a wall which raises huge privacy and security concerns and will cause more problems than it solves. As the country digested the national emergency, cybersecurity workers were still scrambling to clean up the security nightmare wrought by the longest shutdown in history. Amid all the border wall news this week, you'd be forgiven for missing that the president also signed an executive order creating the American AI Initiative. In an op-ed for WIRED, White House deputy assistant to the president for technology policy Michale Kratsios explained why AI strategy is a security issue. Speaking of AI, to combat the growing threat of deep fakes, a new tool uses the blockchain to monitor video for tampering and manipulation.

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Billionaire serial entrepreneur Richard Branson told the New York Times in June that a universal basic income is an appropriate response to income inequality. "A basic income should be introduced in Europe and in America," Branson told David Gelles of the Times. "It's a disgrace to see people sleeping on the streets with this material wealth all around them." In particular, Branson said the acceleration of machine intelligence is driving the need of cash payments. "I think with artificial intelligence coming along, there needs to be a basic income," said Branson.