Greece Wants to Put Humanity Above AI in New Constitution
Greece, the historical cradle of democracy, is preparing for a major overhaul of its Constitution. Among dozens of changes under debate, one stands out: the inclusion of an article stating that artificial intelligence must serve individual freedom and the prosperity of human society, with controlled risks and well-managed benefits.
The proposal was laid out by conservative Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis in Athens, as part of a long constitutional review process that involves two consecutive parliaments and requires some level of agreement between different parties. Instead of treating AI as a behind-the-scenes technical topic, the Greek government is taking the issue to the highest level of the country’s law, trying to ensure that future generations are not left at the mercy of automated decisions without human oversight.
Mitsotakis framed the change as a way to protect the future in a context of global concerns about AI risks to democratic governance and even to humanity itself. In a speech to lawmakers from his center-right party, he summed up the idea in a phrase that has become a symbol of the debate: we need to take care now of the world that will welcome the next generations.
What Changes in the Greek Constitution with AI at the Center
The proposed wording for the new AI clause is straightforward: Artificial intelligence shall serve the freedom of the individual and the prosperity of society, ensuring that risks are mitigated and that the advantages it offers are fully realized.
In practice, this means creating a kind of constitutional track for all future laws dealing with AI. Instead of relying only on one-off regulations, corporate codes of conduct or temporary rules, Greece wants to nail down a few pillars in the Constitution itself:
- Human beings at the center: algorithms and automated systems cannot override human dignity and fundamental rights.
- Individual freedom as a priority: decisions made or supported by AI must respect personal autonomy.
- Social prosperity: AI use should generate tangible benefits for society as a whole, not just for a few companies or interest groups.
- Risk mitigation: the state assumes the duty to reduce potential harms such as abusive surveillance, algorithmic discrimination or political manipulation.
- Harnessing benefits: the Constitution is not anti-technology; the goal is to use AI productively, with economic and social gains, but within clear limits.
This approach did not come out of nowhere. Experts in constitutional law and technology in Greece have been calling attention to the power of large digital platforms, which accumulate economic weight, massive amounts of personal data and sophisticated AI models, often operating beyond the state’s traditional oversight capabilities. For part of the constitutional law community, only an explicit obligation — AI in the service of democracy — can create an effective brake in this scenario.
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Other Constitutional Changes Under Discussion
AI is not the only hot topic in the review. The package put forward by the Greek government also includes several other important changes that help show the scale of the reform underway. Among the proposals are:
- Expansion of mail-in voting: broadening postal voting to make it easier to participate in elections, especially for people who live far from polling stations.
- More years of mandatory schooling: raising the minimum education requirement from 9 to 11 years, strengthening basic education as a long-term policy.
- Ban on retroactive taxes: prohibiting taxes from being applied retroactively, in an effort to provide greater legal certainty for citizens and businesses.
Mitsotakis mentioned, in addition to AI, challenges that are already part of everyday life, such as the climate crisis, the protection of water resources and the transition to renewable energy. In the government’s view, all of these issues are part of a single package of structural questions that demand constitutional responses, not just scattered ordinary laws.
By describing AI as a major revolution that also needs to be placed, at the constitutional level, in the service of individual freedom and social well-being, the prime minister makes it clear that the country does not want to simply react to technology, but shape its use based on public values.
How the Constitutional Review Process Works in Greece
Revising the Constitution is neither quick nor simple in Greece’s political system. The process is intentionally long and full of steps to prevent impulsive changes. It works roughly like this:
- The current parliament debates and votes on which articles can be revised.
- Then a second parliament, elected in the following legislative term, decides on the final wording.
- In several areas, some level of support from different parties is required, preventing the Constitution from swinging back and forth with each change of government.
In this context, making AI a constitutional topic is not only a political priority for the current government, but an attempt to create long-term safeguards. It is a kind of institutional guardrail for the use of intelligent systems over the coming decades.
Evripidis Stylianidis, a governing-party lawmaker and central figure in the review, said in an interview with a state radio station that protecting and properly using artificial intelligence touches all human rights in daily life. That is why, according to him, the issue needs to be part of the constitutional review. It is not just about technology: it is about housing, work, privacy, education, access to public services — all increasingly mediated by algorithms.
Greece, Technology and AI: Recent Context
The proposal for change does not come from a country disconnected from the digital world. Since emerging from a severe financial crisis about eight years ago, Greece has been betting heavily on technological modernization. Two examples illustrate this shift:
- Strengthening border surveillance: use of advanced monitoring systems, including AI-powered tools, to better control borders in a region that deals with intense migration flows.
- Overhauling the tax system: digitization and automation of tax processes to increase efficiency and reduce evasion.
On top of that, the country has built a powerful unified digital public services platform. Through it, citizens can handle everything from civil procedures such as divorces to seemingly simple tasks like buying tickets for domestic soccer matches. In this context, AI appears as a tool to make the state more agile and less bureaucratic.
At the same time, the government has been pushing for tougher measures in the digital sphere, especially regarding young people and social media. In April, it put forward a plan to completely ban social media use by minors under 16. The stated aim is not only to apply the rule domestically, but also to pressure the European Union to adopt similar guidelines, kicking off a continent-wide debate on protecting children and teenagers online.
Why Legal Scholars Want AI in the Service of Democracy
A big part of the debate comes from constitutional and digital law experts within Greece itself. In their view, large tech platforms today control so much personal data and computing power that they can effectively act beyond efficient public supervision, heavily influencing:
- information and news flows;
- targeted political advertising;
- content recommendations that shape public opinion;
- economic opportunities and access to services.
For these experts, if AI is not explicitly required, at the constitutional level, to respect and serve democracy, there is a real risk that the digital public sphere will be captured by private interests, with a direct impact on political representation and the very legitimacy of the electoral process.
Stylianidis summed up this point by noting that many questions are currently decided at the international level, but the way AI touches everyday human rights demands a clear domestic stance. By putting the topic into the Constitution, Greece is trying to assert that, despite global agreements and transnational companies, the country has its own parameters for the use of intelligent systems.
Practical Challenges in Turning the Text into Reality
Writing a nice sentence into the Constitution is one thing. Turning it into day-to-day practice in a hyperconnected world is something else. If the AI amendment is approved, Greece will have to grapple with some very concrete challenges:
- Finding the right level of detail: a very technical text can become outdated quickly; a text that is too generic may turn into a mere symbolic statement.
- Enforcement capacity: without trained regulators, technical teams and audit tools, it is hard to ensure that large AI systems comply with the new constitutional principles.
- Balancing innovation and control: the country needs to avoid both stalling technological projects and allowing unregulated AI use in sensitive areas like justice, health, security and public policy.
- Interplay with European rules: Greece is part of the European Union, which is already moving ahead with its own AI regulations. The national Constitution needs to align with this framework without creating unnecessary conflicts.
One sensitive point is the relationship with global tech companies, which often offer solutions as black boxes, with little transparency on training data, model architecture and decision-making processes. For the AI article in the Constitution to have real impact, the Greek state will need to demand more documentation, create accountability standards and, in some cases, refuse deployments that violate the new principles.
AI, Digital Rights and the Future of Greek Democracy
By bringing the AI discussion into the Constitution, Greece is doing more than simply updating a legal text. The country is essentially recognizing that issues such as privacy, data protection, access to reliable information and limits on automated surveillance are now as structural as separation of powers or the right to vote.
In an era of large-scale disinformation, AI-generated content and recommendation algorithms that reinforce opinion bubbles, giving constitutional weight to the relationship between technology and democracy is an attempt to keep the playing field at least somewhat balanced. The message is clear: intelligent systems are welcome, as long as they do not distort political participation, silence minority voices or turn citizens into mere profiling targets.
If the review is approved as currently framed, Greece could become one of the first countries to spell out in its Constitution that artificial intelligence must, by design, serve human freedom and the common good. In a global landscape where AI is spreading at breakneck speed, this move puts the cradle of democracy back at the center of a worldwide discussion: how to ensure that, in the clash between algorithmic efficiency and human rights, it is society — not the machine — that stays in charge.
