Some of the best brains on artificial intelligence were selected by Greece to form the country’s advisory committee in order to prepare the country for further technological advancements.
According to a press release from Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’ press office on Thursday, the committee is being established following the PM’s decision.
“The geometric progress of Artificial Intelligence makes it necessary to set up an Advisory Committee under the Prime Minister, with the main objective of preparing the country for the developments that all kinds of applications of this technology will bring, in the direction of participatory resilience, competitiveness, sustainable development and prosperity,” the announcement said.
“The Committee will provide evidence-backed advice and proposals on how Greece can take advantage of the multiple possibilities and opportunities arising from the use of IT,” it was added. Further, it will be determined how “a coherent framework of protection against potential challenges and adjustments, inequalities and the dangers involved” may be implemented.
More specifically, it was pointed out that the Committee will formulate policy recommendations and outline guidelines for the long-term planning of a national strategy for IT.
The fields Greece will focus on will be the economy and society, productivity, innovation, infrastructure, climate crisis effects, human resources and social cohesion, quality job creation, national digital sovereignty defense, and the improvement of the operation of the State.
The members of the Committee on Artificial Intelligence in Greece
Constantinos Daskalakis is the Avanessians Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT. He holds a Diploma in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the National Technical University of Athens, and a PhD in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from UC Berkeley.
He works on Computation Theory and its interface with Game Theory, Economics, Probability Theory, Machine Learning, and Statistics.
Kimon Drakopoulos the Robert R. Dockson Associate Professor in Business Administration at the Data Sciences and Operations department at USC Marshall School of Business. His research focuses on the operations of complex networked systems, social networks, stochastic modeling, game theory, and information economics.
In 2020, Drakopoulos served as the Chief Data Scientist of the Greek National COVID-19 Scientific taskforce and a Data Science and Operations Advisor to the Greek Prime Minister.
Vangelis Karkaletsis is the Director at the Institute of Informatics and Telecommunications of the NCSR “Demokritos.”
He is a graduate of the Department of Computer Engineering and Informatics at the University of Patras with a master’s degree in Artificial Intelligence from Queen Mary & Westfield College at the University of London and a Ph.D. in knowledge representation and information extraction from the Department of Informatics and Telecommunications at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens.
Vasso Kinti is a Professor of Philosophy of Science and Analytical Philosophy in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens.
She holds a degree in Chemistry from the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (EKPA) and a Ph.D. in Philosophy and History of Science from the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA). She has served as a Visiting Scholar at Princeton University and the University of Chicago.
George Pagoulatos is the Ambassador of Greece to the OECD. He is a Professor of European Politics and Economics at the Department of International and European Economic Studies of the Athens University of Economics and Business and a Visiting Professor at the College of Europe in Bruges, Belgium (2006-present).
He served as the Director General of the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP) from 2019 to 2023 and has been a member of the ELIAMEP’s Board of Directors since 2013. He is a member of the Council of the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR).
Fereniki Panagopoulou is an Assistant Professor of Constitutional Law, Data Protection Law, and Bioethics at Panteion University and the Director of the European Laboratory of Bioethics, Technoethics, and Law at Panteion University.
She has served as a Legal Auditor at the Hellenic Data Protection Authority for eight years. Panagopoulou studied Law at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (undergraduate and postgraduate degree in public law) and Public Health and Law at Harvard University. She holds a doctoral degree in Constitutional Law and Bioethics from Humboldt University of Berlin.
Ioannis Pittas is a Ph.D. Electrical Engineer and serves as a professor at the Department of Computer Science at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (AUTh).
His research interests include artificial intelligence, autonomous systems, computer vision, machine learning, intelligent digital media, and human-centered computing. He serves as the Director of the Artificial Intelligence and Information Analysis Laboratory at AUTh and is the President of the International Artificial Intelligence Doctoral Academy (AIDA).
Timos Sellis is the Director of the “Archimedes” Research Unit of the “Athena” Research Center. Most recently, he was a Facebook Researcher (USA, 2020-22) as well as Professor and Director of the Data Science Research Institute at Swinburne University of Technology (Australia, 2016-20).
He was previously a faculty member at the University of Maryland (USA, 1986-92), at the National Technical University of Athens (Greece, 1992-2013) and at RMIT University (Australia, 2013-2016).
Andreas Stavropoulos is a partner at Threshold (formerly DFJ) Ventures and member of the firm’s management committee.
He currently serves on the boards of a number of private companies, including several in the artificial intelligence and the enterprise infrastructure space, in addition to his involvement with other enabling platform technologies.
John Tasioulas is Professor of Ethics and Legal Philosophy at the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Oxford, and the inaugural Director of the Institute for Ethics in AI. He is also a Senior Research Fellow at Balliol College, Oxford.
He was born in Australia, and his parents emigrated from Greece in the early 1960s. He received degrees in philosophy and law from the University of Melbourne and studied as a Rhodes Scholar at the University of Oxford, where he completed a D. Phil.
Charalampos Tsekeris is the Vice President of the National Bioethics & Technoethics Committee, Permanent Member of the National Commission for Human Rights, Visiting Professor at the University of Athens (EKPA), and a Principal Researcher at the Institute of Social Research of the National Center for Social Research (EKKE).
Source: Greek reporter