“The Machines Are Trading. But Who’s Still Thinking?”
“The Machines Are Trading. But Who’s Still Thinking?”
Blog Article
At a gathering of bright young minds from the region’s top universities, Joseph Plazo—AI investor and founder of Plazo Sullivan Roche Capital—chose to talk not about growth, but governance.
MANILA — 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 almost mechanical consistency, did not arrive to dazzle.
“Delegating decisions doesn’t absolve responsibility.”
???? **When the Innovator Becomes the Interrogator**
Unlike many critics of AI, Plazo is not an outsider. He led the firm that made AI profitable.
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 lacked the ability to see the moment.”
???? **Why Pause Could Be the Last Power Humans Hold**
Plazo warned against the growing cultural obsession with speed—particularly in finance.
“Friction slows execution, but gives space for reflection.”
He introduced a three-question model he calls **Conviction Calculus**—a checklist not for technical performance, but for ethical clarity:
- What does this say about who we are?
- What would we know if we turned off the data feed?
- Who takes responsibility if the outcome is devastating, but the logic was perfect?
???? **The Human Cost of High-Speed Finance**
Markets in Singapore, South Korea, and the Philippines are being reshaped by code.
Plazo asked a harder question: “Can we build systems faster than we build the ethics to govern them?”
In 2024, two Hong Kong hedge funds collapsed after AI-driven trades missed here geopolitical shifts.
“We created tools that don’t know how to say no.”
???? **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.”
Several venture capitalists approached Plazo after his speech.
One called the model:
“The future of finance, if it wants to have one.”
???? **Not All Collapses Scream First**
Plazo closed with a sentence that now circles boardrooms like a quiet echo:
“The next crash won’t be emotional. It will be rational—executed too quickly, without dissent.”
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.