“In the Age of AI, Are We Losing the Right to Say ‘Wait’?”
“In the Age of AI, Are We Losing the Right to Say ‘Wait’?”
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.
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 a 99% win rate, 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.”
???? **Joseph Plazo: A Technologist With a Conscience**
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.
“Machines may win milliseconds. But humans protect meaning.”
He introduced a three-question model he calls **Conviction Calculus**—a checklist not for technical performance, but for ethical clarity:
- Is this consistent with how we want to be remembered?
- Does this decision consider factors machines miss—public mood, historical echoes, lived experience?
- Who takes responsibility if the outcome is devastating, but the logic was perfect?
???? **Asia’s AI Boom—and the Accountability Gap**
The investment in algorithmic systems is massive, and largely unregulated.
Plazo asked a harder question: “We’re expanding capacity, not responsibility.”
AI models executed flawlessly—right into catastrophe.
“We’ve built machines that never blink. But who teaches them when to look away?”
???? **AI That Understands Stories, Not Just Signals**
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:
“It won’t come from fear. It will come from code—unquestioned, unchallenged.”
Not a prophecy of doom—but a call for discernment.
Because here systems move money. But only people carry the weight of consequences.