‘We’re already fighting yesterday’s battle’: Greece’s prime minister gets candid about AI

Most leaders on a trade mission stick to the pitch, but when I interviewed Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis this week, he also admitted that no government is ready for what AI is about to do. Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis came to San Francisco on Monday night to promote Greece, but he also did something that heads of state on trade missions don’t typically do. In front of roughly 250 founders, investors and operators, he said openly that he doesn’t have answers to many of the AI questions leaders around the world are more privately debating. The prime minister, speaking with this editor at an event hosted by Endeavor Greece, the local arm of a global nonprofit that supports entrepreneurs in emerging and growth markets, described his Bay Area trip as partly a fact-finding mission.

He’d spent the morning touring Tesla and Sequoia Capital, among other stops, with plans to head this week to the U.N. General Assembly in New York. But the trip was also meant to build bridges; indeed, he was pitching anyone in tech who might consider setting up shop in Greece, which is set to regain developed market status next year from MSCI, the influential index provider. “I think it’s another indication that the economy is doing well and that Greece is no longer treated