Where AI Fails: Lessons from Joseph Plazo:
Where AI Fails: Lessons from Joseph Plazo:
Blog Article
A Wake-Up Call from Manila’s Leading AI Strategist
While tech evangelists tout AI supremacy, a bold voice in Manila issues a sharp reminder that money still bends to human instinct—conscience, context, and conviction.
“AI won’t make you rich. But it will make your mistakes faster.”
That was the blistering opener at his jam-packed keynote at the University of the Philippines’ main forum—and it hit the crowd like a whipcrack.
Facing him were the region’s next-gen economists and AI thinkers—portfolio hopefuls, quant researchers, and finance scholars from leading institutions across Asia.
Plazo—CEO of a firm at the intersection of AI and capital—delivered a dose of realism on what AI delivers—and fails to grasp in real-world investing.
And what it still lacks, he stressed, is think like a human.
### Beyond the Hype: Investing in the Age of Overpromised Intelligence
Dressed in a razor-sharp outfit, Plazo paced the stage like a courtroom litigator.
He began the teardown with a short video montage—YouTubers hawking AI bots. Then he paused.
“I created the model they ripped off,” he said, matter-of-fact.
Laughter broke out—but that wasn’t the punchline.
The message? Most AI is built on hindsight.
“You can’t outsource principles. AI doesn’t believe in a trade—it mirrors what already happened.”
“When war unexpectedly explodes, when Powell coughs during a Fed announcement, when a bank implodes overnight—AI stays blind. Humans do.”
### The Students Who Challenged Him—and Got Schooled
The jaw-dropper? A live AI-vs-human trading duel.
A student from NUS presented an AI-backed trade on the click here Nikkei—technically solid, sentiment-scanned, and data-rich.
Plazo nodded thoughtfully. Then said:
“Good. But you missed the BOJ’s stealth bond buy this morning. Your AI doesn’t sense the bluff. It consumes noise.”
The audience leaned in. The student grinned. Then: applause.
Another moment: A robotics PhD from Kyoto asked if quantum computing would render all current models useless.
Plazo’s answer? “Yes—and no. Faster chips won’t purge panic from data. Train an AI on fear, and it’ll become hysteria with processing power.”
### The Three Myths Plazo Shattered in 45 Minutes
1. **“AI Will Replace Portfolio Managers.”**
Nope. AI supports—it crunches, optimizes, and speeds up decisions—but it doesn’t see through fog-of-war events.
2. **“AI Understands Fundamentals.”**
Wrong. AI interprets numbers, but can’t see through diplomatic posturing. It may model interest rates, but it doesn’t hear whispers in Davos.
3. **“AI Makes You Smarter.”**
Actually, it might lure you into dependency. “The danger isn’t in trusting AI,” Plazo warned. “It’s losing your grip on human reason.”
### Why Asia Paid Close Attention
This wasn’t just another keynote.
Asia’s universities are now home to finance’s future titans. They’re asking: more code, or more conscience?
Plazo’s call: “Harness tech, but stay human.”
In closed-door chats at Ateneo and a roundtable at AIM, professors wrestled with what they called a turning point speech.
One finance dean privately told Forbes, “Joseph might have rebooted our entire AI syllabus. Not magic—mirror.”
### The Future AI Can Build
Despite the critique, Plazo isn’t anti-AI.
He’s building multi-signal trading engines—integrating macro signals and crowd psychology.
His stance? “Ride with it. Don’t abdicate to it.”
“It’s not starving for stats. It’s missing context. And that still lives in humans.”
The applause echoed across campuses. And his message is still echoing in Asia’s finance incubators.
In a world drunk on AI hype, Plazo gave the crowd what AI can’t: humanity.