What JSON is
JSON is a text format for nested data: objects with named keys, arrays, strings, numbers, booleans and null. It has no date type and no comments.
Every web API, most configuration files and anything that talks to JavaScript.
What Ruby is
A Ruby array of hashes with symbol keys.
Rails seed files and Ruby scripts.
What changes when you convert JSON to Ruby
Four shapes all read correctly: an array of objects, an array of arrays with a header row, an object of column arrays, and an object keyed by row id. A single wrapper key holding the array, which is how most APIs reply, is unwrapped automatically. Nested objects are flattened one level into dotted keys; anything deeper is kept as JSON text in the cell, because a table cannot hold a tree.
Column names are converted to valid symbol names, which means non-word characters become underscores.
What carries over from JSON to Ruby
Ruby can express everything JSON holds about a table, so this conversion is about shape rather than loss.
Both formats record types, so numbers, booleans and nulls survive as themselves rather than as text.
The identifier 007 comes out of the Ruby as 007. Reading it as a number would have made it 7, and an id that changes value is worse than one that stays text.
The role "Analyst, data" survives with its comma, in one cell rather than split across two. That is the first thing to check in any converted table, and the usual place a Ruby file goes wrong.
The quotes around Jonah "Jo" Pryce are left as a plain quote character in the Ruby.