Joseph Plazo Delivers the Truth Wall Street Won’t Say: AI Isn’t a Crystal Ball
Joseph Plazo Delivers the Truth Wall Street Won’t Say: AI Isn’t a Crystal Ball
Blog Article
Joseph Plazo just warned a room full of elite students something Wall Street won’t admit: AI may be powerful, but it lacks wisdom.
MANILA — He didn’t show up to sugarcoat things. He came to crack illusions.
On a sweltering Thursday morning at the Asian Institute of Management in Manila, Plazo addressed a sea of students from top Asian universities—AIM—ready for a sermon on AI’s glory in finance.
What they got instead? A splash of cold market reality.
“AI is like your smartest intern,” Plazo noted, “But you still don’t give the intern the keys to your vault.”
The room laughed. Then they grew quiet. Because he wasn’t joking.
### AI’s Blind Spot? Human Nature
Let’s be clear—Plazo isn’t some Luddite clinging to the past. He architects trading AIs. His firm, Plazo Sullivan Roche Capital, powers some of the most accurate systems on global markets. He understands machine learning like few do.
But that’s exactly why his warning landed like a punch.
“The problem isn’t AI,” he told the room. “It’s our wishful thinking. We keep dreaming it’ll save us from making hard decisions. It won’t.”
Plazo shared real-world case studies—moments when AI signaled winning trades… just ahead of a central bank pivot or an unexpected war. Moments no dataset could foresee.
### Smart Students Tried to Push Back—They Didn’t Win
A student from Kyoto asked if LLMs might someday gauge global sentiment.
Plazo didn’t flinch.
“AI can catch a tweetstorm. But it won’t sense dread in a press conference. It misses regret in a central banker’s sigh.”
The room oohed. That one stuck.
Another asked, “Can AI ever understand conviction?”
Plazo raised an eyebrow.
“Conviction isn’t math. It’s gut. It’s shaped by failure and memory. You can’t download that.”
### This Wasn’t a read more Tech Talk—It Was an Intervention
This wasn’t about flash trading or chatbots. It was about responsibility.
Students admitted they saw AI as a cheat code—an escape hatch from risk, from thinking too hard. Plazo called it out.
“You can automate your trades. You will never automate your judgment.”
That line landed. Because everyone in that room—from the copyright cowboys to the quant whizzes—wanted alpha. But not at the cost of their soul.
### Give AI the Tools—Not the Steering Wheel
Plazo didn’t trash AI. He credited its strengths:
- It filters noise.
- It backtests at scale.
- It tracks technical setups better than any human.
But it can’t read sarcasm. It won’t grasp when a politician is bluffing. And it doesn’t care if your retirement burns.
“If your AI bot makes a bad call,” Plazo asked, “do you still own it? Or do you blame the code?”
That’s leadership talking.
### Trading is Human—AI is Just the Tool
Plazo wasn’t preaching finance. He was preaching maturity. Use AI—but don’t worship it. Let it assist—not decide.
And yes—he still believes in the machines. He’s building tools that track geopolitics, misinformation, even psychological nuance.
But he left no doubt:
“No machine can tell you when *not* to act. That’s your job.”
### In a World of Signals, Be the Noise You Trust
As the crowd filed out—buzzing, challenged, changed—one phrase echoed down the halls:
“AI doesn’t know your values. So don’t let it make your decisions.”
In a world chasing speed, Plazo offered something rarer:
A choice.
Because investing isn’t just about *winning*. It’s about knowing **why** you played.