The members of the High-Level Advisory Committee on AI presented their recommendations for Greece’s transition to the era of artificial intelligence to Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, in order to provide the country with substantial comparative advantages and making it a pioneer in selected fields of application of the new technology.
The meeting, held late on Monday, examined some of the central objectives proposed within the strategy for artificial intelligence, such as improving the efficiency of the public sector, upgrading public education and health to provide better services that are tailored to the needs of individual students or patients, developing new civil protection tools against the consequences of climate change, protecting democracy and public debate from disinformation, and strengthening national defence.
The goal of further increasing Greece’s attractiveness as an investment destination for advanced technology dominated the discussion. As they explained, a country can benefit from a positive dynamic, adding that the success of the first investors can act as a “beacon” for the arrival of other companies in the future.
The Committee on AI has recommended six flagship projects, including the establishment of Greece as a model country in data collection and governance, which is an essential basis for the development of artificial intelligence, as well as the establishment of a centre of excellence for AI, which will constitute a research and educational institution of global scope. The aim is thus, on the one hand, to establish a pioneering regulatory-operational framework and on the other hand to implement interdisciplinary innovative research, promoting the development of AI and at the same time stimulating the business and academic environment in Greece.
Flagship projects also include the development of a central AI educational platform that will support teaching, learning and online collaboration; the encouragement of the development of AI ecosystems, computing resources and opportunities for investment and education, such as Greece’s participation in the European competition to create an AI Factory; the creation of a data space for the Greek language, which will promote the exploitation of Greek texts and cultural works by the large language models currently used by AI, which will contribute both to the more accurate integration of this information in AI education and to the preservation of the Greek language; and the establishment of a global forum on AI ethics and a global observatory on AI in the democratic process.
Mitsotakis: A benchmark text for Greece
“To the extent that I have been able to run through the draft, it is truly a benchmark document and it is the definition of how I imagined the national strategy for our homeland. And of course, I think that what will concern us going forward is the implementation plan for the next steps, because you set very specific and measurable goals, so how we implement the strategy and who will be the owner of the individual projects and how we can monitor its implementation will be the next issue that will concern us, I think. But today, let’s take a step back and first see what it is that you are proposing to us and what you want us to discuss today,” Mitsotakis said.
Daskalakis: ‘It is of existential importance that this transformation be successful’
“I think today is a more – let’s say- celebratory day. We are not doing any work, however, the Committee has done a lot of hard work in the last year and, as you said, even harder work is ahead to implement these proposals. Because, while we tried to make the proposals realistic and have a significant possibility of having a major impact on the country, implementation is still a big bet that we must win. Therefore, today is the day that we deliver our work,” the head of the Committee, Professor Konstantinos Daskalakis, said.
“I want to thank you for giving me the responsibility to undertake this work, and to thank on my part the members of the Committee, as well as Yiannis Mastrogeorgiou and Kyriakos Sabatakakis for the excellent coordination of this Committee.
As I said before, our purpose is to map opportunities for the application of Artificial Intelligence in Greece and for the transformation of the country in the new era. I believe, and the members of the Committee believe, that it is of existential importance for this transformation to be successful.
I believe this transformation is a greater challenge than the digital transformation of the country and I think the difference is similar with the human talent and infrastructure needed for this transformation.
I believe that Artificial Intelligence is another ‘track’. And in order to play in the premier league in this area, political will is needed and cooperation between the state, the academic community and the private sector is also needed.
In the text, we have mapped out opportunities for the application of artificial intelligence in the country and we also have some flagship programmes that we propose in the introduction and which are analysed further, from many angles, in the Committee’s chapters.
We believe that flagship programmes are essential for playing in the premier league in this area. Some of them are easier to implement, and some of them are already at the beginning of their implementation. However, others are more difficult, but I believe that they are very important to do. We describe, to the extent we can, in a 100-page text, what we propose to do and why it is important for these proposals to be adopted,” Daskalakis added.
