Before an audience poised to inherit the markets, Joseph Plazo—AI investor and founder of Plazo Sullivan Roche Capital—delivered not predictions, but a pointed pause.
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.
“Delegating decisions doesn’t absolve responsibility.”
???? **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 algorithm?
???? **Asia’s AI Boom—and the Accountability Gap**
The investment in algorithmic systems is massive, and largely unregulated.
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 here 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:
“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.