AI company Seekr and survivalist Bear Grylls are aiming to develop the “survival skill” of digital media literacy through their latest educational platform Mission Seekr.
The company originally announced the project in June as an effort to arm the next generation “with critical media literacy tools and the confidence to safely navigate the online landscape.”
“At Seekr, we’re committed to creating a more informed society and empowering people to make smart and educated decisions about the content they consume,” Pat Condo, CEO of Seekr Technologies said in a statement. “Together with Bear Grylls, we’re embarking on a groundbreaking adventure to develop critical media literacy skills and bring trust to the online experience.”
Speaking with Fox News Digital, Condo explained how his platform differs from traditional fact-checkers.
“What we do is we analyze the article as a whole and then depending upon the different signals we extract, we essentially assess it, whether it’s more credible or less credible, more like a directional kind of position as opposed to an absolute position,” Condo said.
He explained, “I felt that something as a real public service actually is that everyone has the right to high quality information. Everybody has the right to make decisions based on what is the most credible. And we know that in a democracy, the final vote can change the course of history. And if we don’t, you have the right information in the hands of people, then we’re going to choose a path that may not be the best.”
Condo elaborated on his company’s efforts to develop “digital survival skills” on par with wilderness survival skills.
“We wanted to take a complex subject which is identifying false and misleading information, and we wanted to build it into something a little bit more, you know, focused on young adults. And the idea came from our collaboration with Bear, where he’s all about survival skills and yet enjoying the environment,” Condo said.
He continued, “And we created Mission Seeker, which is all about digital survival skills, how to get media literacy and education and critical thinking into young people. But at the same time, in an environment that is fun and challenging and utilizes concepts of survival except really focused on the digital aspects of it.”
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In the company’s statement, Grylls made similar comments on the topic of media literacy skills.
“With so much of our time spent online and misinformation spreading like wildfire, conquering the digital environment really is the next frontier,” Grylls said. “Now more than ever, media literacy skills have become survival skills. I’m excited to partner with Seekr to create the next generation of digital young explorers.”
Condo also complimented Grylls as an ideal non-political figure to spearhead the project
“In order for us to get a message out, we need people that, you know, genuinely believe that young people need the skills. But we also believe we also need people that are not political. We don’t want to put volunteers into the system by bringing on somebody that has a political orientation and perhaps that everybody does. But it has to be sublimated to the bigger picture,” Condo said.
He added, “And, you know, Bear is a very inspiring story. He’s popular all over the world with young people. He’s charismatic about, you know, what he does is his love for the outdoors, the environment. But he’s also very genuinely concerned about kind of where things are headed relative to digital media literacy and critical thinking.”
Regarding concerns over artificial intelligence, Condo spoke optimistically about the future use of the technology.
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“Well, you know, there’s nothing today and nothing on the horizon that can absolutely replace a human in terms of their creativity and their ability to control a large force, you know, that they could put to good. Now, there’s always people that can program something to bad, you know. But that’s the programmer. That’s not the actual nature of the force. It’s like through history, we’ve tamed animals and sometimes bad things happen. We’ve tamed water and hydroelectric power and we’ve now tamed A.I.,” Condo said.