“Joseph Plazo Warns: AI Can Execute—But It Can’t Reflect”
“Joseph Plazo Warns: AI Can Execute—But It Can’t Reflect”
Blog Article
Inside the auditorium of the Asian Institute of Management, Joseph Plazo—AI investor and founder of Plazo Sullivan Roche Capital—chose to talk not about growth, but governance.
As the Philippines builds its reputation as a technology hub — the atmosphere inside AIM’s lecture hall was not electric, but charged—with thought.
Plazo, a man whose trading systems are trusted by institutional investors across continents and have posted near-perfect results in volatile markets, did not arrive to dazzle.
“If you hand your financial future to a machine,” he began, “ensure it reflects your principles—not just your targets.”
???? **When the Innovator Becomes the Interrogator**
Unlike many critics of AI, Plazo is not an outsider. He shaped the system that now dominates.
Which makes his unease all the more compelling.
“Optimisation is a tool, not a compass.”
He referenced an early pandemic incident: an AI under his firm flagged a short trade on gold—right before central bank intervention reversed market expectations.
“We stopped it. It crunched numbers, not nuance.”
???? **Delay Isn’t a Bug. It’s a Human Feature.**
Plazo warned against the growing cultural obsession with speed—particularly in finance.
“Delay isn’t inefficiency—it’s responsibility.”
He introduced a three-question model he calls **Conviction Calculus**—a checklist not for technical performance, but for ethical clarity:
- Is this trade aligned with the values of the firm—or just its ambition?
- Is this merely a technical position—or a real-world one?
- Are we hiding behind the read more algorithm?
???? **Asia’s AI Boom—and the Accountability Gap**
Markets in Singapore, South Korea, and the Philippines are being reshaped by code.
Plazo asked a harder question: “The software is evolving—but is the oversight?”
In 2024, two Hong Kong hedge funds collapsed after AI-driven trades missed geopolitical shifts.
“We’ve built machines that never blink. But who teaches them when to look away?”
???? **Beyond the Bot: Plazo’s Push for Narrative AI**
Plazo isn’t calling for a retreat from technology.
He is instead building what he terms **“narrative-integrated AI”**—systems that assess not just numbers, but context, tone, and geopolitical undercurrents.
“We don’t need smarter machines. We need more conscious ones.”
Investors weren’t just curious—they were concerned.
One called the model:
“What regulation failed to build, this framework might.”
???? **The Next Market Failure May Begin With a Perfectly Executed Mistake**
Plazo closed with a sentence that now circles boardrooms like a quiet echo:
“It won’t be noise that breaks us. It’ll be silence.”
It wasn’t an attack on AI—it was an appeal to remain human.
Because we built the machines. But we still write the stories.