Amid rising AI euphoria, one voice stood apart, Joseph Plazo offered a sober warning to a roomful of future market leaders with a message few in the tech elite are willing to confront: Speed and scale are not substitutes for discernment.

**MANILA —** On a humid Thursday morning in the wood-paneled halls of the AIM campus, Plazo eschewed celebration. His audience—a curated gathering from NUS, Kyoto, HKUST—came expecting an ode to artificial intelligence in finance.

Instead, they received an eloquent critique of our reliance on code.

“AI is like your smartest intern,” he said, half-joking. “But you still don’t hand the intern the vault keys.”

Laughter followed. And then stillness. Because he wasn’t joking.

### A Sobering Thought: AI is Not the Answer to Human Uncertainty

Plazo isn’t an outsider to this world—he’s part of the architecture. His firm, Plazo Sullivan Roche Capital, trains some of the most widely used trading AIs globally. But that insider status makes his critique all the more potent.

“The problem isn’t the tech,” he said. “It’s our longing that it will save us from the weight of responsibility.”

Plazo offered real-world case studies—AIs that, on paper, flagged perfect trades. Only to be undone by things no algorithm could foresee: a central bank’s abrupt pivot.

Context, he argued, remains the province of people.

### The Future Pushed Back. Plazo Didn’t Blink.

One Kyoto student asked whether LLMs could model global mood.

Plazo didn’t hesitate.

“AI can detect outrage in a tweetstorm,” he said. “But it can’t smell fear in a leader’s voice.”

A notable hush followed.

Another student asked if AI might simulate conviction.

“Conviction,” Plazo replied, “isn’t data. It’s the bruises of being wrong—and surviving. It’s knowing when *not* to act.”

You can’t upload that.

### This Wasn’t About Code—It Was About Character

Many students—confident in their tools—admitted to viewing AI as a workaround. A way to evade risk. Bypass emotion. Plazo corrected that notion.

“You can outsource your trading logic. But never your ethics.”

It struck a chord.

Because whether they wore suits or sandals, most in that room shared one goal: success. But Plazo asked a deeper question—*at what cost?*

### This Wasn’t Techlash—It Was Tech Maturity

Plazo was not read more anti-AI. He enumerated its strengths:

- Filtering massive noise
- Identifying technical patterns at scale
- Stress-testing portfolios in seconds

But he also listed its limits—starkly.

It can’t detect sarcasm. It can’t weigh political nuance. And it doesn’t know that your retirement plan may hang in the balance.

“If the algorithm fails,” he asked, “will you take responsibility? Or just blame the machine?”

The room was quiet. That quiet held meaning.

### AI Can Read Charts—But Not You

What emerged wasn’t a rejection of AI, but a reminder of its place.

Plazo described tools he’s building that consider misinformation, psychological factors—even geopolitical instability. But his parting truth was unambiguous:

“No machine can tell you when *not* to act. That’s a human burden.”

### Maybe the Future Doesn’t Need More AI—But Better Humans

As the crowd dispersed—some thoughtful, some rattled—one phrase echoed in the corridors:

“AI doesn’t know your values. So don’t let it make your decisions.”

In an age obsessed with speed and prediction, Plazo offered something radical:

Intention.

Because in the end, investing isn’t about beating the market.

It’s about remembering *why* you entered the arena in the first place.