The Silent Truth About AI and Investing: Inside Joseph Plazo’s Wake-Up Call to Asia’s Brightest Minds on the Missing Element in AI
The Silent Truth About AI and Investing: Inside Joseph Plazo’s Wake-Up Call to Asia’s Brightest Minds on the Missing Element in AI
Blog Article
In a bold and sobering address, financial technologist Joseph Plazo issued a warning to Asia’s brightest minds: the future still belongs to humans who can think.
MANILA — What followed wasn’t thunderous, but resonant—it reflected a deep, perhaps uneasy, resonance. At the packed University of the Philippines auditorium, future leaders from NUS, Kyoto, HKUST and AIM expected a triumphant ode to AI’s dominance in finance.
But they left with something deeper: a challenge.
Joseph Plazo, the architect behind high-accuracy trading machines, refused to glorify the machine. He began with a paradox:
“AI can beat the market. But only if you teach it when not to try.”
Students leaned in.
What ensued was described by one professor as “a reality check.”
### Machines Without Meaning
In a methodical dissection, Plazo attacked the assumption that AI can fully replace human intuition.
He showcased clips of catastrophic AI trades— trades that defied logic, machines acting on misread signals, and neural nets confused by human nuance.
“ Most of what we call AI is trained on yesterday. But investing happens tomorrow.”
It was less condemnation, more contemplation.
Then he delivered his punchline.
“ Can an algorithm simulate the disbelief of 2008? Not the price drop—the fear. The disbelief. The moment institutions collapsed like dominoes? ”
No one answered.
### When Students Pushed Back
The Q&A wasn’t shy.
A doctoral student from Kyoto proposed that large language models are already detecting sentiment and adjusting forecasts.
Plazo nodded. “ Yes. But knowing someone is angry doesn’t mean you know what they’ll do. ”
Another student from HKUST asked if real-time data and news could eventually simulate conviction.
Plazo replied:
“You can simulate storms. But you can’t fake the thunder. Conviction isn't just data—it’s character.”
### The more info Tools—and the Trap
Plazo warned of a coming danger: not faulty AI, but blind faith in it.
He described traders who no longer read earnings reports or monetary policy—they just obeyed the algorithm.
“This is not evolution. It’s abdication.”
Still, he wasn’t preaching rejection.
His firm uses sophisticated neural networks—but never without human oversight.
“The most dangerous phrase of the next decade,” he warned, “will be: ‘The model told me to do it.’”
### Asia’s Crossroads
The message hit home in Asia, where automation is often embraced uncritically.
“Automation here is almost sacred,” noted Dr. Anton Leung, AI ethicist. “The warning is clear: intelligence without interpretation is still dangerous.”
During a closed-door discussion afterward, Plazo urged for AI literacy—not just in code, but in consequence.
“Make them question, not just program.”
Final Words
His closing didn’t feel like a tech talk. It felt like a warning.
“The market,” Plazo said, “is not a spreadsheet. It’s a novel. And if your AI doesn’t read character, it will miss the plot.”
There was no cheering.
They stood up—quietly.
A professor compared it to hearing Taleb for the first time.
Plazo didn’t sell a vision.
And for those who came to worship at the altar of AI,
it was the sermon they didn’t expect—but needed to hear.