Benchmark Happenings

AI's Promise and Peril: Austin Ramsey on Revolutionizing Industries, Privacy Challenges, and Empowering Businesses

Jonathan Tipton, Steve Reed & Christine Reed Episode 45

Could AI be the hammer that builds or the hammer that breaks? Join us as we venture into the transformative world of AI with Austin Ramsey, the innovative CEO of Point Tech. We explore the promise and peril of artificial intelligence, from its potential to revolutionize industries like real estate to its role in medical breakthroughs and the ever-present threat to privacy and data security. Austin shares his insights from recent trips and collaborations, painting a vivid picture of how AI is reshaping the business landscape.

Dive into the heart of Northeast Tennessee's vibrant business climate under the new administration, where optimism meets action. Austin reflects on the swift governmental response to recent devastations and the emphasis on transparency in governance. We also examine the significant investments in AI by giants like OpenAI, Oracle, and Microsoft, setting the stage for AI's thrilling yet daunting evolution. The journey isn't just about technology—it's about the human connection that Austin fosters through Point Tech, empowering businesses to navigate these changes with confidence.

As the competition heats up, we look at the dynamic landscape where tech titans like Elon Musk are pushing the boundaries of what's possible. From the historical context of AI's rapid advancement to navigating cybersecurity threats, this episode is a treasure trove of knowledge. Austin's unique approach integrates the human element into technology, ensuring that businesses can focus on their passions while leaving their tech worries behind. This engaging discussion is a must-listen for anyone eager to understand the intersection of technology, business, and personal connection.

To help you to navigate the home buying and mortgage process, Jonathan & Steve are currently licensed in Tennessee, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and Virginia, contact us today at 423-491-5405 or visit www.jonathanandsteve.com.

Speaker 1:

This is Benchmark Happenings, brought to you by Jonathan and Steve from Benchmark Home Loans. Northeast Tennessee, johnson City, kingsport, bristol, the Tri-Cities One of the most beautiful places in the country to live. Tons of great things to do and awesome local businesses. And on this show you'll find out why people are dying to move to Northeast Tennessee and on the way we'll have discussions about mortgages and we'll interview people in the real estate industry. It's what we do. This is Benchmark Happenings, brought to you by Benchmark Home Loans.

Speaker 1:

And now your host, Christine Reed. And now your host, Christine Reed.

Speaker 3:

Well, welcome back everybody to another episode of Benchmark Happenings, and I'm so glad we're into a new year and I'm so excited for our guest today. The star of our show is Austin Ramsey, with Entrepreneur CEO of Point Tech. So, austin, thank you for being with us. Thank you for having me. It's great to be back. It is, it's great to have you back and I know we're both just so excited over our new administration.

Speaker 2:

Yes, business optimism is in the air.

Speaker 3:

Yes, I mean, I can already feel just so much more positivity, not only in the business climate but the social climate and social media, and yes, it's amazing how things have changed.

Speaker 2:

It seems like transparency is back, which is amazing. You know before it. Just you felt like you really didn't know what was happening. And I think as a as a consumer, as an American, you know we should know what's going on with our government, with our world. And I think as a consumer, as an American, we should know what's going on with our government, with our world. And now we're hearing in real time what's happening and I think that's just amazing to have that ability now to know what's going on.

Speaker 3:

and not be wondering. That's right. That's right, and I'm amazed that, just in the short amount of time since the inauguration, how much has been accomplished. It's remarkable it is.

Speaker 2:

It is, and the move, the pace of things. I mean you go from coming into Damascus to view the damage there going to North Carolina then going to. California, to then back to Vegas, to then back to Vegas and then back to, I think, florida. I mean in one day. That was the administration's move. I think that just I don't know how they do it.

Speaker 3:

I don't either.

Speaker 2:

It makes me tired thinking about it.

Speaker 3:

I just want some of that energy Exactly. I'm like how in the world.

Speaker 2:

How do you make that much of a movement in one day, in one day, in one day?

Speaker 3:

But I thought it just shows the concern for the American people, especially in our area in the Unicoi region and North Carolina. Just the amount of devastation.

Speaker 2:

You know, I tell you when you drive through going to Asheville still. It's sad and I had a trip a couple weeks ago to Charlotte and went through the Swannanoa community. It's just devastating and I think, as a person, that I've not been actively involved. I have a couple clients that have been working through some disaster relief and repair and so seeing some of that, you hear those stories but actually seeing it it's going to take years and so it's good to see that now there's an emphasis on.

Speaker 2:

I know the Army Corps of Engineers are back working to get roads and bridges repaired, you know, because this? Is our community and you know it's a major artery going across the mountain and then you've still got 40 that's impacted, coming from Knoxville to Asheville. So that really impacts our region. So it's good to see a focus and the people.

Speaker 3:

And it just shows the true American spirit, and especially the people that live here in East Tennessee and Western North Carolina just the sheer ingenuity, the perseverance that these people have, who have lost everything, and so our thoughts and prayers are always for them and just look forward to seeing more improvements come their way. But, austin, you've been a busy fella, so I know you recently went to New York.

Speaker 2:

Yes, You've been a busy fella so.

Speaker 3:

I know you recently went to New York, yes, yes, and what you do in the IT space is absolutely you do crush the box. If anybody's gone to your website which is great, by the way you are a chief box crusher and you do think outside the box. And I love having you on this show because I just feel like you're always on the cutting edge of everything. And you know, we've kind of brushed a little bit on AI artificial intelligence and I know that there's some amazing things coming our way in this country. So, austin, why don't you kind of open that up and just share some of your thoughts around the AI? And you know where you see our country going? And with the $500 billion investment, it's huge.

Speaker 3:

And things that you're doing as well, just with your company, because I know you're growing and you're really out there and just share with what you learned in New York, and so I'm just going to turn it over to you. Yeah, well, you know, I think, since we've talked last.

Speaker 2:

You know we were talking about, you know AI and you know, its challenges. You know privacy. You know, one of the biggest things that I think is starting to go through every business's mind, especially in the C-suite level of leadership, is you know, how do we leverage AI in a way that's effective but also that's safe and secure?

Speaker 2:

Yes, that is still something that I think businesses are starting to grapple with is how do we let our teams utilize these services, but how do we do it in a way where we're not letting customer data out?

Speaker 1:

But how do we do it in a?

Speaker 2:

way where we're not letting customer data out. We're not letting our strategies or maybe it's our intellectual property get breached Because when we use these AI systems, generally speaking, most of these AI systems are open. So when you're using ChatGPT on your phone and you're asking questions, and you're interfacing with ChatGPT that data is then getting stored and then someone else that's searching. It's constantly evolving. Current administration now is going to look at AI in terms of potential regulation in terms of how do we contain and control which AI models can we trust?

Speaker 2:

I know, just recently. Last week, those that are following the stock market and the technology sector NVIDIA, one of the largest providers of the chips that power servers dropped dramatically overnight due to a report that China's got their own AI model that was built on a smaller scale of hardware that supposedly is claimed to be better. A very traditional Chinese thing. Absolutely the copy US. Yeah, it's a very traditional Chinese thing, absolutely the copy US.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, it's a copy, just like you said. But how do we know? You know what they have and is it? How does it work? How did they do that? And I mean, it's like my first you know, inclination is you know? Show it to me, I don't trust it.

Speaker 2:

Well, I think the biggest thing that I see is with this recent investment. We talked about $500 billion. That's the initial investment and I sense to say that that's going to grow.

Speaker 2:

You know that's a collaboration between which ChatGPT is owned by OpenAI. So you've got OpenAI, you've got Oracle and you've got Microsoft that are coming together to invest, and one of the instances that Larry Ellison of Oracle said was you know, we feel that AI is going to be able to be utilized to help find a cure for cancer, right? I mean, that's amazing to think that AI can be used in this way.

Speaker 2:

But it also makes you wonder again. It goes back to that regulation thing. You've got to have some type of barrier or safeguard maybe is a better word for that that will you know when you use it. Where's your data going?

Speaker 3:

Right and I think that's a big thing.

Speaker 2:

I mean, where is it getting used? I think security.

Speaker 3:

You know cybersecurity security, and I know there's a lot of younger folks that even you know. I've talked to their parents. They're wanting to go into cybersecurity. That's probably a really good field to go into. But I'm like you, austin, I'm thinking what are the frameworks around it? Because there isn't any. And even there's a friend of ours and he lives in New York. They bought a house here and he's a professor, but he also works, he does a lot of consulting and so he does a lot of AI training and I said so, you know, I know that I trust that you're teaching it, that you know. I'm just going to use a really simple example that he shared with me because I'm very simple.

Speaker 2:

And he said you know if I'm teaching AI to recognize an elephant.

Speaker 3:

You know I'm showing pictures of an elephant and I said so. What about all these other people that are hired to train AI and do these things? How do we know that they're showing the correct things, that they're doing the right training in AI? I think that's where I, you know, my concerns come across. Austin, I mean what I mean? What's your thoughts on that?

Speaker 2:

Well, I think, with any tool, whether it's a, you know take a physical tool take an example of a hammer. You know a hammer can be, great usage in building a house, in repairing a door, whatever it is right. But also you can use a hammer in a harmful way.

Speaker 1:

You can use it as a weapon, right so?

Speaker 2:

everything we think of almost has a positive approach and a negative approach. I think with AI it sits in that same way.

Speaker 3:

That's a great way to put that, austin, yeah.

Speaker 2:

I mean, I think with AI you've got the same analogy as that. Are criminals using AI to help them become smarter criminals? Sure.

Speaker 3:

Absolutely, you know they are right. I mean, you know they are.

Speaker 2:

But on the other side, then, is law enforcement using AI to help catch criminals? Well sure. So, both sides are kind of constantly building and I think it ends up you have to ask the question, you know? Going back to the hammer, are we building more houses or are we hurting more people? I think with the hammer analogy we've fortunately built a lot more houses right. So with AI. I think as a whole it's in a positive element.

Speaker 1:

It's in a positive posture.

Speaker 2:

And also because of the way it's constantly learning, AI has frameworks to help push out negative feedback. So if you're training a model, it starts to learn what's true and what's not. So if it's trained in the elephant analogy, if it knows what an elephant looks like and somebody starts trying to train it the wrong thing. We're moving in a way where AI can say no, you know that's, but there's still the question. I mean, it's a computer model, so it can only read off of what it's given.

Speaker 3:

And it's so rapid. Yes, I mean like chat, gpt, you know, being able to spit out a book in no time, no time.

Speaker 2:

Oh yeah, oh yeah. Yeah, I get on my phone now. I was at a conference in New York.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, let's talk about that.

Speaker 2:

It was a very real estate-focused conference and you know talking about how AI is becoming just replacing a lot of the tasks that people do day to day and in fact one of the speakers was a large C-suite executive for a large real estate brand and she said I think that in the next couple of years a lot of the I guess what I would call low value activities hey, I was going to take over that. You're not going to be thinking about following up the same way you were or reaching out the way you were.

Speaker 2:

It's going to be more of that high level going after leads, going after business, right, but in this example you know they had a live demo of pulling chat GPT up on your phone and asking a question, interacting just like a person. And it was responding in a way that if you had an assistant, it would have felt very much the same.

Speaker 3:

The same way, like it was responding in a very human way.

Speaker 2:

Okay, and so I think that's where you know, long-term, we're going to see it become more, feel more like human involvement and I think, as people we're interacting with.

Speaker 3:

AI all the time. We don't know it right, we've had it on Facebook. For how long now, exactly?

Speaker 2:

And that's the biggest, I think, misconception. Maybe that I think I hear is ChatGPT became the Google, if we want to call it brand of the web when you think of search and internet, you say Google. Right, that's what you say. So now with ChatGPT, that's AI. That's what people think of when they think of AI. They say ChatGPT. Gemini is another one that Google authors. You've got Meta. That's MetaLama. That's part of Facebook. That they do.

Speaker 2:

You've got these other platforms. But when you interact on a website and you're doing searches, AI is behind the scenes helping to filter that search down to fit what you're looking for right, or when you're looking for one item and then you forget about that item and then you're searching on another website, you get this advertisement. There's AI behind the scenes driving you back to that product. So it's been present, it's just not been consumerized.

Speaker 3:

And that's where we're at today, and I think it's where you know. It's when we are on social media or when we do searches. It learns what we look at. Yes, we talked about this last time. I'm a shopper.

Speaker 2:

Yes.

Speaker 3:

I pull up a lot of things and I can just be talking about something and it's going to pop up on my Facebook feed or my Instagram or when I'm doing a search and it's your attention.

Speaker 2:

Yes.

Speaker 2:

It's your attention that they're after yes, oh, they want you. They want you and they want to be personalized. I think that's what you know. Ai is driving this idea that it's all about personalization and for companies to really know who you are, what's your shopping pattern, what's your search pattern. If they know that, okay, every time around 9 to 11 o'clock at night, this person is going to be searching for something. Why don't we serve an ad during that time? Right, that's what AI empowers, Whereas before, advertising was sort of like a billboard. You throw it up.

Speaker 2:

You hope somebody sees it, they click. It's kind of a very much I call it kind of like a fire hose approach versus a watering hose. Right, there's two different ways and AI is taking it from that fire hydrant approach to a water hose, if not even. Being more focused. Precise, yeah, precise.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, focused on the audience.

Speaker 2:

Yes, but yeah, I think that's one of the biggest things when I talk to people is helping them understand, and the biggest thing is helping them understand that when you feed data to a model, you know it's got that data and so anything that you're interacting with AI, you know, don't be feeding it things that confidential.

Speaker 3:

That could cause a safety breach Could cause a safety breach, yeah, yeah. And what are? I know you covered these in our last podcast, austin. I thought it was really good you talked about what are some of those things that we can take as a consumer to help prevent some of those safety security breaches of our personal information?

Speaker 2:

Yes, so one of the biggest things and I'm seeing an uptick in this is people that are getting spoofed, or phished so. I kind of use the analogy. I actually had a client in an office not too long ago that had this incident happen. You get an email. It appears to be legitimate, it looks like everything.

Speaker 3:

Oh yes.

Speaker 1:

You see it.

Speaker 2:

And it's becoming hard from a security perspective.

Speaker 3:

Yes.

Speaker 2:

Because, as a security expert, you're constantly on this fine line of well, if that email didn't come, that was a $2 million contract. You're going to be really frustrated. But then it could land and decide well, it was close, it had this score. It was real close. We're going to let it in.

Speaker 2:

So, you still have reliance on the person to do their due diligence, to inspect it, to look at it. What I'm finding, though, is it's becoming very, very difficult to notice the difference. Right, it's almost becoming, you know, and I get hundreds of them, so I feel like I'm a pretty, you know, I can look at one pretty quickly and detect oh yeah, delete that, or well, let me look at that.

Speaker 3:

What are some things you look for? Because I know the company I work for we've got an icon If we suspect it's a phishing email. You know, I just click the icon and it goes straight to the you know the IT security to look at, because I won't even open it, you know. But I mean I just know things that I look for. But as there are certain things that people that you know, people that just have these Gmail accounts and they're getting like hundreds of emails from everybody, the biggest things that I find is looking at, first of all, looking at where it came from.

Speaker 2:

You know when you look at an email, you'll see a name. But if you look behind the scenes if you click on the name you'll see the actual email address. Nine out of ten times you'll look behind that name and it will be some random thing at some random address.

Speaker 2:

So you're like that's not PayPal or that's not eBay or that's not. But also looking at the language. A lot of times these phishing attempts, there's broken English in them. Branding, and this is an odd one. Some people are not. I'm a. I associate, I think. As people, we often associate colors to brands. Right, if you think of McDonald's, you? Think of red and yellow right. Yes, but even closer looking at brands to see, does the logo look blurry? Is it a photo? Some of these emails come through as like a photo versus text.

Speaker 1:

So when you try to highlight text.

Speaker 2:

it's a photo, but at the end of the day I always say when in doubt, delete. Delete it If it looks like something that's of any or verify right. Reach out to the company and say, hey, received this email. It looks like it came from PayPal. They'll say, well, no, we didn't send that email. Delete.

Speaker 2:

But I think it's just, it's hard, it's slowing down, right, because we live in such a hyper fast. You get hundreds of emails a day. We do, right, yes, and so it's taken the time, though, to look at those emails and go, no, that looks weird, but they're. I mean, they are going to difficult levels to detect phishing. I had one. This is a business example. I had one the other day. A business group was working with another business group, knew the group. They had established a relationship, had a contract, all was well. They get an email from a person there that was legitimate. It was actually from their shared environment. So they go in and I'm verifying, I'm like well, that's legitimate.

Speaker 1:

It was actually from their shared environment.

Speaker 2:

So they go in and I'm verifying, like well, that's normal because that's a normal environment, but the link that came from that was then a phishing email.

Speaker 3:

Oh my goodness, so it was a good email.

Speaker 2:

It was actually a shared file, but the shared file was a phishing attempt, so it was like an email system wouldn't have been able to verify that that was phishing or not, because you can copy and paste links, because you have to have a one-time code to open it, right.

Speaker 2:

So you couldn't scan the code, you couldn't scan the link to tell if it was legitimate or not, until you got that one-time code. So this was a I mean, this was a pretty sophisticated course. Luckily, the user reached out to the team. They sent an email in which then got to my team and we looked at it and said, hey, this looks okay. But then when we clicked in the second to verify it, I said whoa, this is not right. So I think it's just being very careful and I hate to be this way, but being skeptical now of anything.

Speaker 2:

Just being very, because you know it takes one time to and it's not always the impacts of oh, did they breach your credit card? But it demotes your feeling when you feel like you've been breached right. There's a feeling to that and so frustration and it makes you very cautious.

Speaker 3:

Well, and people and even companies being held hostage. Yes, as I know, I'm in the hospital environment, and so hospitals being held hostage. Yes, you know, as I know I'm in the hospital environment, and so hospitals being held hostage. Yes, you know, so they just end up having to pay. It's cheaper to pay it's cheaper to pay than to try to do all the other things, and it's just, and I know they really struggle with cybersecurity.

Speaker 2:

Oh, it's yeah.

Speaker 3:

I put so many firewalls up, you know, just to help prevent that.

Speaker 1:

And it takes one bad actor in the group, you know and it's, I think, going back to your cybersecurity and students.

Speaker 2:

I mean. There's a world of that and I think it's only going to get harder, which is where you know if you are a company, you need a good partner that's going to be able to help advise you and walk you through the things that you need, because I find myself in many situations where people just don't know.

Speaker 1:

Right.

Speaker 2:

And they think, oh well, this is set up this way and it's like no, no, you've got this open rain here.

Speaker 3:

And that's scary and that's where you can come in as a consultant with your company with Point Tech to help you know your customers, your clients, you know set up those parameters and it's so important you know to reach out to you. You know it is critical.

Speaker 2:

And.

Speaker 3:

I know that you're very well versed. You're just excellent, superb in what you do, thank you. So I always love to have a conversation with people.

Speaker 2:

I always say that sometimes you know my role comes in to help you understand the landscape. You know what do you have and sort of be that partner. You know, a lot of times I partner with other companies that are actually doing the security right. I just want to help you understand. It's kind of like you go in to visit a doctor and then they refer you to a specialist right, I'm going to kind of be that first doctor that's going to help understand your landscape, your environment, your business, where all of your resources are.

Speaker 2:

A lot of times people don't realize how many places their stuff is right, they've got data here and there and everywhere, and helping them understand that landscape is important, because if you do get breached, well what's the impact? Where all can they go? And limiting that approach is important to help people understand where their data is and if you have to pull your insurance provider in right if you get breached, you have cyber insurance. You've got to be aware of all of that so you can get coverage too.

Speaker 3:

Absolutely. I think that's important and for you know that you can help in all of those spaces with IT. So I think you know. What's interesting to me is the let's talk a little bit about the three billionaires.

Speaker 1:

Yes.

Speaker 3:

The $500 billion investment for AI, and I know that Trump really wants to. He sees the need to make America to have the best and the brightest, and we need that in the IT space, yes, and also for AI. Yes, I mean we need to have our own chips and all those things right. So where do you see that going with that investment?

Speaker 2:

So I think you know I have a couple thoughts. I mean one. I think it's good to see American leadership and you know, especially from a government perspective come in and say this is an important priority so let's invest, let's get some of the largest companies in America to do that. It's also fascinating, though, because it creates some competition, so one of the things that I've read a lot about is Elon Musk has XAI.

Speaker 2:

So, Elon Musk has his own AI brand. They're not a part of that investment right. So you've got and Elon's a very big connector to the current administration and you know, I remember there was a conversation where they tried to get I think they tried to get the administration to basically say that they had pushed him out or something. You know there's all this talk right.

Speaker 2:

And you know, our president basically said no. He said, you know, I think Elon doesn't care for one of the members. There's some challenges between Elon Musk and OpenAI Sam. They had a little bit of a falling out because Elon actually founded OpenAI to start with. But anyway, long story short. What's fascinating, though, is that's our leadership, creating competition.

Speaker 2:

You've got these three big firms $500 billion. Xai is investing billions of dollars themselves. In fact, they have a large facility in Memphis, Tennessee, where they're developing AI for their driverless full self-driving technology, as well as more. So that's great for the consumer, that's great for America. I mean, we're about creating competition and creating opportunities, right? That's what competition brings out the best in everybody.

Speaker 2:

So, that's the biggest win I think that I see, is that you've got this competitive landscape. You've even got, you know, Facebook developing their own AI technology, and so where are we going to be five years from now? Oh, my goodness, I don't think we can even dream Five years ago. We were just getting ready to see a pandemic hit. Think about where we are in those five years, like the next five years, I mean, it's going to get real rapid.

Speaker 3:

And that's why I told my husband, I said, that's why I love to stay involved and current and work, because I want to stay on top of all the technology that's coming out, because I'm telling you, if you don't, it is hard to catch up.

Speaker 2:

It's very hard. We're in a world where I think, if you turned your phone off for a month and come back on, I mean think about what all you. I mean think what all's happened in January. It's already almost the end, it's already starting February. I can't believe it's already starting February, but think about what all's happened in a month.

Speaker 3:

Right right.

Speaker 2:

It's rapid.

Speaker 3:

And I think you know IT and IT security and you're just your company. If you have a company or just your personal use, partner with somebody. And I'm going to say partner with Austin Ramsey at Point Tech, because you know, because you helped me not long ago resolve an issue on my phone that I mean I would have just I don't know, it was just to me, it was just such an overwhelming issue To you. It was like, oh, matter of few text messages back and forth and you resolved it and got me on my way, and so have that in your pocket. You've got to partner with somebody today that can help you, because it's not, it's not if it's when that security breach happens in your life. I hope and pray nobody goes through that. But even with your company, you've got to have reputable, great people who understand that and and and. I can't think of anybody better than you, austin, because you're so. Not only are you just the chief box crusher, as I call you and you call yourself, you think outside the box, but you're so personal.

Speaker 3:

Thank you and you truly do care about people and you just have that personal high touch approach that you make things so simple.

Speaker 2:

Thank you.

Speaker 3:

And it's like I can just take a deep breath when I know you're taking care of things.

Speaker 2:

That's my goal. That's my goal. I mean, I started this because I started Point Tech, because I saw so many IT providers that just focused on technology but not human personal aspect of it. And you know businesses that really didn't understand what was going on. And so how empowering and I've seen this and proven this how empowering is it for a company when they understand at a ground level right.

Speaker 2:

I'm not saying you need to understand down to the root of it but at a ground level, understanding the landscape it's empowering, and that's my goal to empower my customers and clients to understand that landscape and to be able to not worry about it and to do the things that they love to do.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, well, and you're so unique in so many ways because most people in the IT space that have the expertise that you have have zero personality. They don't really. And you, you, you're just that whole. You're just that whole package of being able to communicate and be with people.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, try to keep it within one frame.

Speaker 3:

Absolutely Well Austin, it's been great.

Speaker 2:

It's been a pleasure.

Speaker 3:

Oh, I love having you on. Thanks for having me. You're just such a wealth of information. You're so positive, so you're a blessing, and so everybody Point Tech is the name of Austin's company Reach out, you've got a great website, thank you.

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