January 21, 2020
Demokritos at the heart of Artificial Intelligence research
Dr. Vangelis Karkaletsis, Director of the Institute of Informatics and Telecommunications at NCSR Demokritos is amongst the 12 personalities that CNN Greece has chosen to distinguish for the year 2019.
In the interview Dr. Karkaletsis highlights the major achievements of 2019, including the important collaboration with EY Global, a multinational company that funds the new Center of Excellence in Artificial Intelligence (AI) which specializes in intelligent document analysis located at the campus of NCSR Demokritos in Agia Paraskevi. This new venture is expected to employ at least 40 new researchers to NCSR Demokritos within the next year, whilst setting the basis for the Institute to become a world renowned center for AI research.
This initiative belongs to the efforts that NCSR Demokritos is making to help reverse the brain drain phenomenon towards brain gain, bringing to Greece not only Greek scientists, but even foreign scientists. A striking example is the American automaker Tesla, which has set up its first research group in Europe at the Lefkippos Attica Technology Park on campus. The team is made up of more than 20 engineers, mainly Greeks who have returned to the country, to research on electric motors for large vehicles.
Regarding Greece and Europe and the future of AI Dr. Karkaletsis said: the debate about the future of AI that has already begun in Europe has to do with the essence of AI in human societies. The current motto that the European Commission uses for AI is the Human-Centric and Reliable Artificial Intelligence and Greece can play a strategic role in that. This is what the European Union proposes and it is also what differentiates us from the USA and China. We emphasize the Human-Centric characteristics of AI, because we want an AI that is reliable, fair, ethical and does not limit human autonomy and respects human privacy. All this requires a great deal of research and this will be a key element in our research in the coming years, combining scientists from the sciences but also scientists from humanities.
The article is available in Greek here.
The interview is available below to view.