What should non-technical people know about AI? How do you overcome not having a college degree? What advice do you give young entrepreneurs? These are some of the questions we ask Ray Guzman, Army Veteran, advisor, board member, strategist, and CEO of Switchpoint Ventures, an innovation enabler making AI investments in organizations that seek transformation through machine learning. Ray talks about his time in the Army and as a high potential employee at Microsoft, the place mindfulness plays in his life, and how he became a believer from being a rational skeptic, on this episode of the Fortune’s Path podcast.
Ray Guzman, CEO of Switchpoint Ventures, talks about how he joined the military at 17 years old, met his wife shortly after joining the military, and life got really real, really fast. Ray got involved in computer training with a focus on automation. Ray and his wife invested in a commuter in 1995 and became early adopters of technology. Ray tells Tom what non-technical people should know about AI. AI does a good job of stitching words together. What is sometimes lost in that is the sequence of those words don't have an appropriate meaning. The answers we get from AI, while sounding authoritative and correct, may very well be wrong, and in some instances completely manufactured by the AI. Tom and Ray discuss the problems with AI using uncredited sources to create its outputs. Ray tells a story of how ChatGPT rewrote a biography he gave it and did a better job than he would've while a friend of his asked ChatGPT to write his biography from scratch and got a response that was fictitious. Ray tells how he's learning more about mindfulness and being intentional about rest. Tom tells Ray about how his dog Margaret inspired him to become more mindful. Ray tells Tom about his spiritual practice and reading scripture every day. Tom asks Ray about how he balances his ambition with self-acceptance. Ray tells about he founded his venture studio Switchpoint Ventures and how they're working to make a difference in healthcare and other industries.