Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis spoke openly about artificial intelligence during a visit to San Francisco on Monday night. He told about 250 founders and investors that he does not have answers to many of the AI questions facing world leaders.
The event was hosted by Endeavor Greece, a nonprofit that supports entrepreneurs. Mitsotakis called the trip partly a fact-finding mission, with stops at Tesla and Sequoia Capital.
Greece Pitches Its Economy to Tech Investors
The prime minister also used the trip to promote Greece to tech companies. Greece is set to regain developed market status from index provider MSCI next year.
"I think it's another indication that the economy is doing well and that Greece is no longer treated as a special case," Mitsotakis said.
He said Greece is paying down debt at a record pace and borrows more cheaply than the U.S. Greece's 10-year bond yield is around 4.3%, versus about 5% for U.S. Treasuries. Greek yields topped 40% in 2012.
Mitsotakis said much of the roughly €36 billion Greece received from the EU's post-COVID recovery fund went into digital infrastructure. That includes an online portal for government paperwork and a supercomputer built with Hewlett Packard Enterprise in Lavrio, set to come online within months.
Greece has also changed stock option taxes, loosened labor laws and cut taxes for returning Greeks for up to seven years. On visas, Mitsotakis said the government "still [has] work to do" on processing speed.
His larger goal is to win back talent that left during the debt crisis. He suggested that with U.S. work visas getting harder to get, more founders should consider hiring in Greece.
Mitsotakis Says AI Questions Remain Open
Greece will ban social media for children under 15 starting in January. Mitsotakis suggested the ban may already be outdated because of AI chatbots.
"Sometimes I feel that we're already fighting yesterday's battle," he said. "What does it mean for our kids to grow up with digital companions or boyfriends or girlfriends?"
Greece has run an education pilot with OpenAI to cut teachers' paperwork. Mitsotakis sees promise in AI tutors but said they should not replace learning basic skills. "Complacency is a human trait," he warned, noting students already use chatbots for homework.
On data centers, he said Greece has seen little public pushback. Microsoft is building data centers near Athens, and AWS recently struck a deal with Greece's largest utility to build the country's biggest data center in a former coal region.
Mitsotakis said job losses from AI are "going to happen," and that "no government and no society is prepared for the speed with which it will happen."
He sided with frontier lab leaders calling for AI development to slow down. "If the people who are building the models are telling us, 'We're not really sure exactly what's happening with these models,'" he said, "we need to listen to them."
He said some form of "smart regulation" is coming and that the U.S. will largely shape it. He added that Greece would be glad to host those discussions.
Mitsotakis, who studied at Stanford, called the visit "a homecoming." He heads to the U.N. General Assembly in New York this week.
