The Prime Minister of Greece, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, referred to the areas where artificial intelligence can contribute to improving policy design during his conversation on Friday evening with Constantinos Daskalakis, Professor of Computer Science at MIT and President of the Advisory Committee on Artificial Intelligence, as part of the “Greeks in AI” conference at Serafio.

“We need to see how artificial intelligence can make governance better. What does a better public sector with artificial intelligence mean?” said Mr. Mitsotakis, noting that the first pilot program, which was used in the Land Registry, shows how significantly productivity can be improved when AI is used smartly.

A second policy area, the Prime Minister underlined, is the AI business ecosystem developing in Greece “with great momentum,” targeting not only the Greek market but also giving companies the opportunity to grow. “By leveraging a regulatory framework that will be flexible enough in the areas where we want flexibility, while at the same time imposing limits where we believe restrictions and safeguards must be placed on AI, such as in the field of children’s and adolescents’ mental health,” he emphasized.

Mr. Mitsotakis also highlighted health as a sector “where very important things can happen,” as well as civil protection, where “we have already integrated basic tools that allow us to predict the progression of a fire.”

“Defense is a chapter of its own. When the country is going to spend 28 billion euros over the next 12 years, I expect there to be added Greek value,” the Prime Minister stressed.

Finally, he referred to education, revealing that the government is already piloting programs with international companies to explore the future of digital tutoring. “How can we support AI tools to help students preparing for national university entrance exams?” the Prime Minister said.

The Prime Minister also spoke about a series of challenges posed by the rapid pace of technological developments. “In every technological revolution, there was concern that technology would destroy the jobs it replaced—and we were always proven wrong… There is a question, however, whether this time things are different. Could it accumulate enormous value in capital at the expense of labor? … What will it mean for social security systems? … These are very real issues that we must reflect on… Questions that have to do with the quality of our democracy and the way, during elections, we need to distinguish what is real and what is not… Should I have protection for my intellectual property, my image? … How can someone use our image to create a fake video?” noted Mr. Mitsotakis, adding: “The Danes did it. We will move in the same direction. I fear that in two years, when we have elections in Greece, the confusion about what is real and what is not will be so great that it will create massive turmoil, benefiting those who don’t see things the way we do.”