The Speech That Shook AI Worship: Inside Joseph Plazo’s Wake-Up Call to Asia’s Brightest Minds on the Missing Element in AI
The Speech That Shook AI Worship: 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 challenged the assumptions of the academic elite: AI can do many things, but it cannot replace judgment.
MANILA — The ovation at the end wasn’t routine—it reflected a deep, perhaps uneasy, resonance. Within the echoing walls of UP’s lecture forum, students from Asia’s top institutions expected a triumphant ode to AI’s dominance in finance.
Instead, they got a warning.
Joseph Plazo, long revered as a maverick in algorithmic finance, chose not to pitch another product. He began with a paradox:
“AI can beat the market. But only if you teach it when not to try.”
Attention sharpened.
What followed wasn’t evangelism. It was inquiry.
### Machines Without Meaning
Plazo systematically debunked the myth that AI can autonomously outwit human investors.
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 paused, looked around, and asked:
“ Can your code feel the 2008 crash? Not the price drop—the fear. The disbelief. The moment institutions collapsed like dominoes? ”
And no one needed to.
### When Students Pushed Back
Naturally, the audience engaged.
A doctoral student from Kyoto proposed that large language models are already picking up on emotional cues.
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 more info news could eventually simulate conviction.
Plazo replied:
“Lightning can be charted. But not predicted. Conviction is a choice, not a calculation.”
### The 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.”
But he clarified: he’s not anti-AI.
His systems parse liquidity, news, and institutional behavior—but humans remain in charge.
“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. “Plazo reminded us that even intelligence needs wisdom.”
At a private gathering with professors, Plazo urged for AI literacy—not just in code, but in consequence.
“We don’t just need AI coders—we need AI philosophers.”
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 won’t understand the story.”
The room held its breath.
What followed was not excitement, but reflection.
A professor compared it to hearing Taleb for the first time.
He didn’t market a machine.
And for those who came to worship at the altar of AI,
it was the lecture that questioned their faith.